Shameless Ramblings

Blender 2.59, now with Ocean Simulation

2011-08-23T11:53:00.005-02:30

Ok, so I have been tinkering with Blender of late, even going so far as to enroll in an online course (The Nature Academy).

Over the course of various tutorials, lessons, etc, it became necessary to update Blender from the 2.49 release currently found in Natty (Ubuntu 11.04) to something more recent. Initially, I used the most excellent PPA Blender SVN maintained by Ralf Hölzemer.

This was great, up to the point where it seemed each commit broke one of the lessons or tutorials I was working on. Of course, this was to be expected, as the PPA provided a daily build for the in development 2.59 series.

Now that Blender 2.59 is released, I felt it was time to make a stable build. That was pretty easy, take the 2.59 package snapshot from Oneiric (Ubuntu 11.10) as a starting point and backport to Natty. Update it to use the official 2.59 source tar.gz from Blender.org. Add in a little flavor from the Blender SVN package, and voila, you have a nice 2.59 build.

While this was going on, I was also still working on the lessons from my online course, and the most recent lesson came out on Oceans. Unfortunately, this lesson required downloading a special build from Save the Ocean Sim. This was sub-optimal, I had just built 2.59 and now needed to use an earlier build and for one not built for Natty.

After going to the Save the Ocean Sim site, I downloaded the most recent patch and applied it to my build for 2.59. With much happiness (and minimal fiddling), it all compiled and tested fine with the ocean test blend from their site.

So,

open up a terminal, and do the following to get this new Blender build:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:roderick-greening/blender

Cheers and happy blendering,

Rod.

In response to "the libappindicator story"

2011-03-14T11:52:00.003-02:30

I generally never weigh in on these things, but I think in this case I understand what some may be missing here.

This is in reference to the following blog post: the libappindicator story

Each side refers to process and how the other side failed to follow it. My question is "can anyone point me to the relevant documentation which shows the process being referred to" and "can both parties review this process to see where they fell down" and "can the process be reviewed to ensure that it is clear and works so as to prevent similar future issues".

I suspect that there is no documented process, nor is it generally understood as to how all this was supposed to work by both parties. It's easy to reject an idea citing some failure to comply with a non-documented process. I'd like to be proven wrong and see that a process actually exists and work from there, but I suspect it's currently vapourware.

It's fine for you to state Canonical did not follow the process, but to not link to a doc or provide a post showing the process as approved by either GNOME or the team within GNOME responsible for this particular area, it's quite frankly irresponsible.

In order to make any such claim, you need tangible documentation. GNOME is big enough and the teams are diverse enough, that you need to document process. How else do you get efficient and allow new development to occur? You cannot exist forever in a vacuum.

So, if there is indeed a well documented process, show us the link. Show Mark that his team failed to follow the documented process. Then, once that's done we can move on. Mark will admit defeat and apologize and we can call it a day.

However, if this is not well documented nor consistent across GNOME projects, then GNOME needs to recognize that the lack of a documented process may have contributed here and let's correct that and move on.

PS: I work in a very process driven area (customer service and delivery) and it requires well documented processes to function. I understand all to well when some process exists virtually and is not well documented what can happen. Orders get missed, revenue drops, productivity suffers. As well, people point fingers. The only way to rectify is document the process and get everyone to acknowledge it. The process doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be documented so you can at least have a reference point to move forward from.

Peace.

Reindeer - Ein Astronaut & The YouTube Musicians Christmas Collab Club

2010-12-22T14:10:00.000-03:30

Interesting colaboration and holiday song.

Interesting comic regarding Wikileaks

2010-12-13T12:37:00.003-03:30

Not KDE/Kubuntu related, but hits a note on freedom...

Android Programming in Ubuntu - The Journey Begins

2010-10-04T15:50:00.005-02:30

So, having had some free time and a little kick in the creativity pants (thanks to Rick Spencer), I've embarked on a journey to try my hand at some 'Droid programming.

To get started, I purchased "Sams Teach Yourself Android Application Development in 24 Hours", by Lauren Darcey and Shane Conder (ISBN: 978-0-321-67335-0). This should be readily available a Chapters, Amazon, etc., and cost's $47.99 CAD.

The book is fairly straight forward, and easy to follow. So far, I completed the first 4 hours, and have had a great time in trying out the examples and all the extra exercises at the end of each chapter.

As I go through the lessons, I'll post my progress, and provide some useful tips, tricks, etc that I have found along the way.

In my next post I'll cover how to set up your environment under Ubuntu, and some things the book either missed or have changed since printing.

Stay tuned!

Copy playlist files to your Media player in Amarok

2009-11-24T13:37:00.007-03:30

Ok, so last night I was trying to help my wife with something in Amarok. She has made a few playlists that she uses for her dance classes, and was looking for a simple way to transfer the songs in the playlist to her media player. I was shocked to discover that this feature had not yet made its way into Amarok 2.

After some digging around, I found that there was a way to do this via Amarok scripting, and in fact someone had written and posted one online. It is available using the GHNS feature in Amarok under the Script Manager, and is called "Copy Selected Files" (search under most downloaded).

For those not familiar with how to add and/or enable these scripts, please have a look at the quick video below. I didn't add any audio, but the visual should be enough.

Have a Dell Laptop and want Kubuntu with Recovery Partition...

2009-11-03T12:24:00.019-03:30

Well, I recently purchased a Dell Mini 10v, and wanted to have Kubuntu 9.10 on it. I purchased it with Ubuntu, but it came with Ubuntu 8.04, and it was the lpia version. Neither of these appealed to me, however, the Dell recovery partition did. So, I set out trying to find a way to get Kubuntu on there with a recovery partition.

Thanks to Mario Limonciello (superm1), who works for Dell, I was able to get a process that more or less works, and gives me a recovery option for Kubuntu 9.10.

Here's basically what you need to do.

1) Download the DVD iso for Kubuntu Karmic 9.10 to your system.

2) Visit https://launchpad.net/dell-recovery/+download and grab the latest dell-recovery deb (at least version 0.27) for Karmic and install it from any Karmic system (gdebi can be used here). This will not work from a live CD/DVD as the process requires a lot of temportary space to work with, so you must be in a working Karmic install (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, etc).

3) Now, run the dell-recovery-media program as follows:

dell-recovery-media --builder

The --builder option is a recent addition by Mario, which allows building Dell recovery media from any Ubuntu ISO, so it will work with Kubuntu, with a few tweaks.

4) Click the Forward button and you are given an opportunity to choose the ISO to build the Dell image from.

Click on Choose Image and select the Kubuntu DVD iso you downloaded earlier.

The screen will update and show some details about the image (which should show Kubuntu Karmic 9.10).

5) Click the Forward button, and hit Fetch/Update GIT Tree.

This may take a few minutes to complete.

Once the fetch is completed, hit the Close button in the GIT Tree Status window. From the GIT Tags drop down, select Origin/Master.

6) Click the Forward button to go to the FISH screen. This allows you to add additional packages to the install process. We are going to skip this for now (I may expand on this in a future post).

7) Click the Forward button and choose to create a USB Flash Drive

8) Click the Forward button and enter a version number (I chose K00 for Kubuntu ), then click Apply.

Enter your password when prompted to Authenticate. The program will now start building the new ISO to copy to the USB Stick.

9) This will then launch the usb-creator application. At this point, you should be able to simply click Make Startup Disk (See some of my previous blog entries about usb-creator-kde for more info about this).

10) After the startup disk completes installing, you can close it and the Dell Recovery window which pops up after.

11) The last step you need to perform is to remove the del-recovery deb from the newly created USB Startup Disk, as it is gtk based, and has some additional deps that are not found on the default install media and will thus fail during the install process. Assuming the mount point for the media stick is /media/disk, you would preform the following command to remove this file:

rm /media/disk/debs/main/dell-recovery_*_all.deb

12) It is now safe to unmount the USB Stick or reboot if you wish to install from it now.

13) After you install the new dell image, you should re-install the dell-revocery application. Unfortunately, one of the deps is currently missing from the package. To get around this, you will need to install policykit-1-gnome as follows:

sudo apt-get install policykit-1-gnome

Then use gdebi to install dell-recovery, which you downloaded (refer to step 2 for the link).

14) Now, you can use dell-recovery-media to rebuild the ISO from the recovery partition and make as many USB disks or ISO's as you want. As well, you can now access the restore option in grub (hold space bar during boot to expose the boot options).

I hope this is useful to you. I will be working with Mario to see how hard it would be to create a Qt/KDE front-end for the dell-recovery package, so that we can avoid having to remove anything.

Arora 0.10 in Kubuntu 9.10

2009-10-05T17:42:00.006-02:30

For anyone looking to try out a lightweight browser under KDE (or even Gnome for that matter), they should definately give Arora a test run.

For the upcoming Karmic Koala release, we have worked very closely with the upstream Arora developers to ensure we have a nicely integrated browser, which can serve as an alternative to the default system browser.

For example, in this release, we see AdBlock support as well as wallet (password/form autofill) support. This was missing in the 0.9 and earlier series, and was definately a feature I missed when testing out this, otherwise, fantastic browser.

Now that it has the wallet and AdBlock features, I can heartily recommend that everyone give it a serious try. If you find the default system browser doesn't work on some of your favorite sites or you find Firefox to be a bit bloated, then you will surely love Arora.

Check out www.kubuntu.org for details on downloading the new Karmic Koala beta or if you already have the beta running, simply install Arora in Add/Remove software.

To find out more about Arora, please see www.arora-browser.org.

Switching from Acer to Dell...

2009-09-28T11:18:00.004-02:30

I have been a long time supporter of Acer, and have 4 Acer systems. However, due to recent issues in dealing with their technical support (helpless desk) I have given up on Acer and instead switched to Dell.

Dell has embraced Linux, and especially with partners like Canonical pushing for more preinstalled Ubuntu systems from Dell, I can only imagine Dell doing bigger and grander things with Linux and Ubuntu.

Given that, I have decided to switch to Dell and throw my support behind them. I have also just today ordered two brand new netbooks from Dell, and will be selling my old Acers.

It's important I believe to start and support vendors who are truly cogniscent of Linux and are willing to work with developers to ensure their systems work well with Linux. Dell is going down the correct path, so here's my thumbs up Dell and Great Job.

And good-bye Acer, it was fun while it lasted.

Recover a Non-booting Linux System

2009-09-15T22:22:00.005-02:30

Ok, inevitably, it will come to pass that if you are testing out Alpha Releases, you will experience at least one time in your life where the system will not boot.

Recently, while working on Karmic (Ubuntu 9.10), I did an update an rebooted into a non functional system. Apparently just before freeze for Alpha 6, there were some uploads which caused the build systems to not completely build all the necessary packages. Hence I had a partial update.

Anyway, things seem to be resolved now, so on to recovery. I am documenting this mostly so I remember how to do it again (copy/paste is your friend) and maybe it will be useful to others.

First, you need a live CD/DVD/USB running your favorite Linux. In my case, it's Kubuntu. I used my usb-creator-kde to make a live USB from a known working and recent release.

After booting into your live environment, you need to open a terminal and switch to mount your partitions under /mnt.

To determine the partitions, you can use fdisk as follows:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd88dfd16

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 61 489951 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 62 38913 312078690 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 62 1306 10000431 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 1307 7385 48829536 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 7386 38913 253248628+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 2057 MB, 2057306112 bytes
64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1012 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 3968 * 512 = 2031616 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0000a283

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 1012 2007777 b W95 FAT32

sdb is my USB drive and sda is my HDD. sda1 is /boot, sda6 is / and sda7 is home. Yours will likely be different.

After you figure out your partitions, you will mount them as follows:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount /dev/sda7 /mnt/home

Verify everything looks correct before proceeding (i.e. you got the partitions correct and mounted in the correct places).

Next, you need to take care of /proc and /dev as follows:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev

Ok, now you have setup your chroot environment, and may change into it:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo chroot /mnt

At this point, you should be able to update your system, add/remove packages using apt-get, or edit any files you need to fix the system.

In my case, a simple apt-get update && apt-get upgrade will fix things.

After making your changes you need to exit the chroot and unmount the partitions in the reverse order.

Now you should be able to safely exit the live system and reboot.

Hope this helps.

Fishing Trip...

2009-07-30T12:44:00.013-02:30

So, taking a break from my Ubuntu development, I decided to go on a fishing trip with a friend of mine.

We went to a truely remote community in Newfoundland called Rencontre East. It's only accessible by Ferry, and it's a 3 hour car ride to get to the Ferry. It's an outport fishing town with a population of about 170 according to 2006 statistics, though I believe more recent numbers would put it closer to 120. Primary industry is the fishery - Cod, Caplin, Lobster, and Crab.

Wharves along the Harbour

It is an absolutely beautiful place to visit. The mountains and valley were forged by a glacier, and there is a fiord (lake) nestled between the mountains, which is 600 feet deep. The lake is home to sea trout and salmon, and possibly other species. Our desitination was to a small cabin at the far end of the lake, and required us to take a boat from the coastal side of the lake to its head.

Heading up the lake

We fished along the way, using a locally made spinner called a spoon spinner. It seems to be the only thing that works in this lake, for the majority of the fishing done here. We managed to catch 13 trout that afternoon, before finally setting foot on the far shore and the beach in front of our cabin.

Cabins on the beach

The next day, we had trout for breakfast, and they were quite a treat. There is nothing better than enjoying the fruits of your labor. After breakfast, we got geared up for a trek around the lake by foot. We have to cross two shallow rivers, as we trek to the left of the cabin, and around the lake. It's rough going, as the shoreline is peppered with fallen rocks and boulders from the sheer rock faces above. As well, there are many natual springs and spectacular waterfalls.

One of the many waterfalls

We fish along the coast for about 4 hours and it starts to rain. My friend is a short distance ahead of me, at what the locals call Duffy's point, while I have sought out the protection of a small overhang of rock, where I make a dry place to sit and have a snack while the rain falls effrortlessly on the lake. My friend makes his way back to my semi-dry shelter, and we enjoy a drink and some home made trail mix. We discuss my inability to land any trout today, and his many catch and releases and the 3 keepers he has so far. I am feeling a bit dismayed to say the least.

Not a Keeper, but funny none-the-less

After the rain let's up, we decide to turn back for the day, and fish our way back to the cabin. Part way back, I stop at a spot where I know there should be some good fishing. Since I'm not having any luck with the spinner, and I' tried every lure I have, I decide to try a plain old bobber and worm. The locals warned me that this never works and you can't catch anything without a spoon spinner here. So far, that seemed to be the case, but I was real desperate to not be shown up.

So, I set up my line and cast. No sooner than the line hit the water and I had a strike and lose it. Followed by several others, that I cannot land. My friend sees that I am now sitting on a rock and not following him back. I motion him to wait or come back, which he does the latter. By the time he get's back to me, I have landed my first keeper for the day. It's not huge, but it will do. We stay a bit longer and eventually I catch another worth keeping. So, you can catch by bobber here.. wish I had tried this earlier today.

Eventually, we get moving again, and after a total of 6 hours walking and fishing, we are back at the cabin. We set a fire and prepare a meal of chicken and some bottled moose. We play some cribbage, anbd have a few drinks before finally retiring for the night.

The next day, we plan to fish for the morning and then we will boat back to the other end of the lake and back to town. We had an offer to go out on the ocean and jig for Cod fish, and we are quite looking forward to this. The mornings fishing was uneventful, and my friend managed to land one trout, while my line lay bare. At least we had Cod jigging to look forward to.

While we never caught many trout, the trip was amazing. Anyone looking to get a real outport experience, simply must travel to Rencontre East. The people are super friendly, and the scenery is awe inspiring.

New TACACS+ (tac_plus) server package

2009-07-29T09:57:00.004-02:30

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on packaging, testing and patching a TACACS+ server to work with Ubuntu Server.

I figured it was time to post up a quick blog about this package, and hopefully see what interest there was out there for this service.

What is TACACS+ and what does the tac_plus package provide?

TACACS+ (Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System Plus) is a protocol which provides access control for routers, network access servers and other networked computing devices via one or more centralized servers. TACACS+ provides separate authentication, authorization and accounting services.

This package provides the server (daemon) for TACACS+ which responds to authentication requests from a RAS (Remote Access Server). The daemon will validate the request against an SQL database, and provide authorization and the level of access, if the authentication passes. The RAS can also provide accounting information to the daemon, for logging purposes.

Please note, there are other implementations of the TACACS+ protocol out there, some of which are unmaintained. This particular version is maintained and is a complete re-write of the TACACS+ daemon from Cisco Systems, and has been implemented in C++. It is under heavy development, and there may be some bugs or missing features in this release. I am working with the author to ensure these things get properly reported and addressed as they are discovered.

Where is this package available for testing?

It is currently in beta testing in my PPA: https://launchpad.net/~roderick-greening/+archive/ppa

Where can I get the source?

The source is currently hosted at http://www.networkforums.net/, and you will need to register for an account to access the download area. I am working with the author to get this hosted in a proper prepository like sourceforge, github, launchpad, etc. Please be patient while we work these details out.

The Web UI for configuration is not yet packaged. You will need to get the tgz from main site until I get it packaged.

Why this version and not some other?

1) Fairly new project
2) Active development and maintenance
3) C++ :)
4) Has a Web UI for configuration (to be added to package shortly)
5) Uses a db to store configuration and AAA logs rather than plain text files

Anyway, feel free to test it out. Also, please give me feedback on how this works for you. Remember, you need to get the Web UI tgz after installing this package and set it up. Hopefully, I'll get this packaged in the next week or so, time permitting. There is a man page (man tac_plus) and a readme (README.Debian) which should help in getting things up and running.

I'm an Uncle...

2009-07-15T12:16:00.005-02:30

So, my sister finally had her baby on July 9th - a whopping 11lb 13oz boy.

Baby, Hunter Jaxon, is 22.5in long, and I swear will be walking in no time. :)

Anyway, just wanted to share my joy with everyone. I guess, I'll be spending some time with my new nephew over the coming weeks, so I may not be as active developing over the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, things should get back to normal soon.

Here's a pic of me and Hunter:

usb-creator-kde - available for testing

2009-07-07T11:16:00.006-02:30

So, I meant to post this up a couple of weeks ago... better late than never.

I have posted an early beta copy of usb-creator package in my PPA. It contains packages for both the gtk and kde front-ends and a common package, which contains the back-end, and some other common bits.

If you are interested in trialing the beta, feel free to download the debs or add my PPA to your sources.list (if you add it to your list, please read the warning on my PPA page).

To get the files, navigate here.

Here are some screenshots showing the kde front-end in action. Enjoy!

usb-creator-kde - in action and with icons...

2009-06-17T19:37:00.003-02:30

Here's a new screenshot showing usb-creator-kde with media detected and some icon bling (icons subject to change).

Basically, I updated the ui elements from QPushButton to KPushButton and assigned icons as KIcons based on appropriate icon/button functions. So they should change with the icon theme - yay.

Anyway, here it is...

usb-creator-kde - adventures in gobject land

2009-06-17T16:40:00.005-02:30

I'll first start out with a disclaimer: I am not fluent in Qt nor Gtk programming. What I know or have learned is through the internet, various books and reading others code. So, what I describe below may not be the best way to achieve the end result, but it appears to work and allow for minimal interference with an existing application backend.

Now that that's out of the way, I'll proceed with the discussion: porting gobject calls to Qt so that I can get a usable KDE/Qt frontend for usb-creator-kde.

For the gtk client (usb-creator), the backend currently implements timers, callbacks, and process watchers via gobject. Similar mechanisms exist for Qt. The current backend is unsuitable for general use by both a gtk and Qt frontend as gobject and Qt seem to tromp all over one another, and cause the frontend to crash. TO get around this, we need to move the gobect calls to the gtk frontend, and implement wrappers that the backend can call from the frontend. Once we have wrappers in place, we can then re-implement the wrappers in our desired frontend (e.g. PyKDE).

Here's an example of some code from the backend:

self.timeouts[udi] = gobject.timeout_add(UPDATE_FREE_INTERVAL, self.update_free, udi)

And from the PyGtk manual:

timeout_add
int timeout_add(int interval, callback callback [, mixed user_data1, ... ]);

Registers a function to be called periodically. The function will be called repeatedly after interval milliseconds until it returns false (or nothing) at which point the timeout is destroyed and will not be called again.

So to keep the timeout alive, your callback function needs to return true;

Unfortunately, there is no single call in Qt that provides this mechanism (none that I know of). So, to implement this, I needed to write a couple of functions, using unnamed arguments lists, lambda notation, etc.

First off, we need a generic timer callback function that will call our passed function, test the return value, and stop the timer if the return value is not True. I also want this function to be private to my frontend class. Here what it looks like:

def __timeout_callback(self, func, *args):
'''Private callback wrapper used by add_timeout'''

timer = self.sender()
active = func(*args)
if not active:
timer.stop()

So, func is the passed calback function to execute, followed by a list of optional arguments *args. The sender will be a timer object, which we get from self.sender, assuming that the parent is some QObject or derivation thereof (in my case, the frontend class KdeFrontend is derived from QObject).

Ok, that allows us to have an arbitrary function with any number of arguments, and have it stop a timer when appropriate. We now need to implement the public wrapper that will use this private callback. Here is the code for that:

def add_timeout(self, interval, func, *args):
'''Add a new timer for function 'func' with optional arguments. Mirrors a
similar gobject call timeout_add.'''

timer = QTimer()
QObject.connect(timer,
SIGNAL("timeout()"),
lambda: self.__timeout_callback(func, *args))
timer.start(interval)

return timer

The add_timeout function takes the same parameters as the gobject.timeout_add function. Inside, we setup a new timer, connect it to our private callback, start the timer and return a reference to it. The magic is in how we connect the passed function func. Notice that we use lambda to call our private callback, passing along the func and *args. Normally, you do not pass a function with variable parameters to Qt connect statements, but in our case, we absolutely are required to do so. This is where using lambda comes in handy.

So, there you have it. A way to implement gobject.timeout_add using Qt. While everyday use of this is not likely, it will certainly help in porting applications from PyGtk to PyQt. I hope someone out there finds this useful. I know I searched for an easy way to do this, and never found anything. After lots of trial and error and asking lots of questions to my fellow developers, I was able to come up with the above.

Cheers.

usb-creator-kde - update and screenie

2009-06-16T12:51:00.005-02:30

The creator is steadily moving along. Right now the main stumbling blocks are gobject calls in the backend and the use of a DBusGMainLoop in the backend.

Together, these constitute a non-working backend for PyKDE/PyQt. KCrash has become a nightmare.

In order to get around this, we need to pull out the gobject and DBusGMainLoop and move them somewhere related to the frontend. At that point I can re-implement the bits I require as PyKDE/PyQt code, while maintaining a common backend code base.

I've taken the first step, and moved DBusGMainLoop to the gtk frontend via a wrapper. I have re-implemented similar functionality via the same wrapper in the kde frontend using DBusQtMainLoop.

Next on the list is to rip out the gobject calls... I suspect a couple of days before I get that all figured out... (unless I get a real dose of inspiration).

Anyway, here's the screenshot as promised, so you know it's not all pie-in-the-sky :)

usb-creator-kde... for karmic

2009-06-15T11:25:00.003-02:30

So, during UDS, the Kubuntu team decided it would be nice to work on making Kubuntu easier to install on netbooks.

The are several things that need to be adjusted to make the netbook experience enjoyable, but the first real thing required is a native client for putting a Kubuntu desktop image into a usb stick.

There already exists a PyGtk front-end, but no PyKDE one. At UDS I decided to take on the task of porting the existing PyGTK client to PyKDE.

At this point, I have ported much of the required code base to support a native client for Kubuntu. There are still some bugs to fix, and some of the new code for the PyGTK front-end does not yet work 100%, and hence neither does the PyKDE front-end.

If anyone is interested in looking at the code and feels like offering advice, it can be found here: https://launchpad.net/usb-creator

To check out the code: bzr branch lp:usb-creator

Anyway, I am working closely with the usb-creator team, and hope to get this working/completed within the next couple of weeks.

Thanks to all who have helped thus far.

Where have I Been?

2009-05-23T12:10:00.005-02:30

Wow, I can't believe it's been about 5 months since I last blogged. That will tell you how hectic my life has been lately.

What's been happening? Well, for one, I'm about to be an uncle... my little sister is having a baby due in less than 7 weeks. I think I am almost as excited as she is! :) I can't wait to spoil the little tyke .. hahah!

Besides that, I have been really busy with work. We are undergoing some changes, and as a result, it has pulled me away from my normal Kubuntu packaging. However, I now have things mostly back in order, and am back to my packaging duties.

Finally, I am typing this at the airport, on my way to UDS Barcelona. I think this trip will be much more interesting than the California one, and definately hotter. I don't think I packed enough shorts... :)

Anyway, here's to hoping I have more time to blog and more frequently.

UDS Jaunty - My Two Day Replay

2008-12-10T02:41:00.010-03:30

The last two days have been very busy indeed, so much so that I missed blogging about Day 1, hence the "Two Day Replay".

Day 1:

I awoke at 6:40AM, not to my alarm, but just by mere fluke. A certain roomie (who shall remain nameless), made certain to set the alarm for 6... AM, but missed the fact that the clock itself was not set correctly for AM. So, when I awoke, the clock was actually showing 6:40PM. The day was off to a great start, as luck was apparently on my side.

After a much to large breakfast, we headed outside to get the bus to Google. I was really excited to be a part of this great community and be afforded the opportunity to go to UDS.

The summit began with an introduction, and a brief overview of things to come. Mark provided some keen insights on where we are headed, what the market is doing, and how we are going to get there. Now I was really getting pumped.

Here's how the days sessions ran for me...

Desktop Experience Plans
The Ubuntu Desktop team outlined their plans for notifications in Jaunty, which are similar to what we have in Kubuntu with KDE 4. While not terribly exciting to most, it does show their interest in both usability while adding in some nice bling.

Debian / Ubuntu Relations
We had a great discussion here about how the various Ubuntu flavors could work together to foster better relations and involvement for the core/motu Ubuntu developers. A lot of ideas were presented, and hopefully, something good will materialize.

Upcoming Launchpad Features
Kiko gave a great talk on Launchpad 3.0. Lots of upcoming features and of course, the big one, open sourcing Launchpad.

NetworkManager connection policies
There were some discussions about how to handle 3G, wireless, and wired and how best to setup policies on creation and tear down of these connections. Currently NM will keep up multiple connections, but there was a con-census that this is not our desired behavior. We discussed some use cases to present upstream.

Kubuntu Jaunty Gap Analysis
A lot of items got covered in this one, like auto-installing flash for KDE 4. The discussion then lead to the whole kubuntu-restricted extras and the fact that the user generally doesn't know to install this package to get flash, mp3, etc, unless they read it in some wiki or forum. So we decided to add this as a check to update-notifier-kde, and provide the user a chance to install some or all these packages. This is a great thing for our users. There were a lot of other things discussed, so feel free to review the spec

The day ended with a great meal at a local Tai restaurant. I had Tom Kha soup and Spicy Peanut something or other. It was pretty good. Some found it spicier than others (/me points to Tonio).

Day 2:

Ubuntu Developer Process Review
A great session by Daniel. It has inspired me to seek developer (MOTU or "insert new name here") status in the near future. I think once I get past Jaunty release, that will be the time to apply, as I will have gone through a complete development cycle, having only started near the end of Jaunty.

Jaunty Ubiquity Usability
We discussed a few UI changes to the installer to improve usability. One of the major changes is to the timezone chooser, which should definitely be an improvement over the existing one.

Kubuntu Jaunty documentation
We need lots of help getting the docs updated, both in upstream KDE as well as for Kubuntu specific packages, etc. If you can use a text editor, you can help.

Tonight I had one of the best burgers, from Chili's. 3 different cheeses, thick back bacon and a pattie which was about an inch thick. After supper, we had a great jam session at the hotel. Everyone sang, played guitar, drums, etc. I'll try and post some pics later, but it's late now and I must get some sleep for Day 3 is fast approaching.

ufw-kde - a simple firewall for Kubuntu users

2008-12-07T11:52:00.003-03:30

Well, as I head out to UDS, I am putting together my demo of ufw-kde, a GUI front-end to ufw (the Uncomplicated Firewall), which is command line based only.

Here is a preview screenshot:

California, here I come...

2008-12-07T11:36:00.000-03:30

So, I am sitting at the St. John's International airport, waiting to board my flight to UDS in California. Last night was a beautiful night, but today it's snowing, limited visibility and 70Kph winds. I wonder if I will get out on time? The flight is listed as on-time, so that certainly looks promising.

Tomorrow begins what promises to be an interesting week. Not only will I be a part of helping shape the next Ubuntu release, I also get to meet some great people in person, and I am really looking forward to that.

So California, here I come... look out!

My recent development work... aka training excercise

2008-11-26T12:00:00.001-03:30

I recently began to dabble with Python, and I am really starting to like the language. It is quite powerful, and intuitive, and allows for some really rapid development, especially when coupled with pyKDE4 (KDE Python bindings).

I was originally trained as a programmer, primarily using C/C++. However, in more recent years, I have been mostly programming in bash and perl, all under work related coding.

With my recent involvement with Kubuntu, I have felt it necessary to learn python, as many of its support applications are written in that language. So, what better way to learn than jump right into a new project. That's where todays post comes from...

I have recently submitted two new projects to Launchpad, with the following two goals:

1. teach myself python and pyKDE
2. hopefully fill a gap within Kubuntu in time for Jaunty

At this point in time, the projects are mere shells/placeholders, and really do not do anything useful besides provide a tray icon and a main window and help dialog. However, this is all a part of the learning process, and more code will appear as I test out various things.

So, what are these two projects? Well, the first is ufw-kde, a graphical interface to the Uncomplicated Firewall. The second is clamav-kde, a replacement for Klamav, which has yet to be ported to KDE4.

Anyway, my primary goal is learning python and kde programming via the python bindings. If these do indeed turn out to be useful in their own right, then that's awesome too.

If anyone is interested in help out on either project, feel free to contact me.

KDE-Nightly (Neon) - For the Thrill Seeker in You

2008-11-03T16:15:00.001-03:30

Well, thanks to Harold (apachelogger) our resident packaging savant, we have the ability to test drive KDE 4.2 trunk daily. Remember, this is trunk we are dealing with and many things break, and possibly break quite often and maybe for extended periods of time. For this reason, you should never install this on your production machine.

I decided to give this a test drive, and figured the best way to do so was via a VM. So, I installed Virtualbox first and set it up. I won't go over all the details here, as there are a wide variety of docs available for setting up virtual box (aka google for it).

Once I had a VM drive all setup and installed with the latest Intrepid, added the KDE Nightly Neon repository (the PPA for KDE Nightly) to a new sources.list.d/neon.list file. The PPA is enabled by adding this entry:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/project-neon/ubuntu intrepid main

The next thing you need is to update your repositories package info. Either using your favorite package manager, and hit their update option, or from the command line execute the following:

sudo apt-get update

Now, you should have an updated package list which contains the Neon packages.

Next, using your package manager, locate the kde-nightly package and select/mark it for installation and apply it or execute the following from the command line:

sudo apt-get install kde-nightly

This will install the required files and setup a new kdm xsession for KDE Nightly (Neon). Once you logout and end up back to KDM, you can choose this new session (rather than the default KDE session).

Reference post can be found here.

Many thanks to apachelogger for this.

Upcoming KDE 4.1.3 release.... Nov 5th

2008-10-31T13:45:00.005-02:30

Well, the Kubuntu team has had a busy night/day, packaging KDE 4.1.3 in preparation for release into intrepid-updates. KDE tagged 4.1.3 on October 29th, in preparation for the November 5th release. I'm pleased to say we are way ahead of the game, after the last 24 hour stint in package building and testing.

It's not like we had an easy time either, what with this coinciding with the Intrepid release and all. The mirrors were completely bogged down, and a few of the team had issues finding a mirror suitable to download from. Luckily, I had a great up-link and a close east coast mirror to work with.

Anyway, the packaging is pretty much completed, we just need to build the stack, test and then deploy to the updates queue. This should coincide with the KDE release date of November 5th, if all goes according to plan. It's a lot to take in, a new Kubuntu release immediately followed by an update to KDE, and a great team to pull it all together.

Kubuntu Intrepid and Desktop Notifications

2008-10-30T00:03:00.009-02:30

For those that aren't aware, Intrepid Ibex is just about ready to hit the streets (sometime Thursday). There have been a lot of changes in this release, and the Kubuntu desktop has had its share, including the switch to KDE 4.1. However, this post isn't about the new release, but rather a new application within this release, called update-notifier-kde.

The app was written by our friend Jonathan Riddell, and has been steadily improved upon by members of the Kubuntu team.

What is update-notifier-kde? It's a small python app that sits in your system tray and monitors your system for updates, crash logs, reboot requests, and other notifications. It integrates tightly with adept/apt, apport, and package update hooks.

Providing the user with useful feedback is very important to the whole desktop experience, and this app delivers.

Over the last few months, I have added a few tweaks here and there, and fixed a few bugs reported during the Intrepid alpha and RC testing. Currently, I am working on replacing the old KPassivePopup with the better KNotification.

It's a work in progress, but by using KNotification, the user is able to change how notifications are sent/received for any event update-notifier-kde generates, which was not the case with the KPassivePopup.

Configuration of these notifications is done via the system-settings. This can be seen in the following screenshot:

With KNotification, the user can completely disable the Popups, or add sounds, etc. This is important, because not all users are equal, and not everyone wants to see the Reboot Required Popup. There were a few bugs surrounding this very thing, and I'm glad to say, users will have the ability to finally turn this off if they choose to (not that I recommend disabling any of the default notifications).

So, I said it's a work in progress and that's for a couple of reasons:

The code changes aren't yet uploaded (expect version 0.10 to have the change included)
It needs some work on localization
The KNotification isn't anchored correctly (IMO) so I need to review that

Below is a shot of the current KPassivePopup. This is the KDE 3.5 bubble, and is non-interactive.

And here, we have the newer KNotification popup.

I hope to complete these changes within the next day or two, so this should hit intrepid updates in the near future.

Intrepid - KDE 4.1 goes mainstream

2008-10-27T12:53:00.008-02:30

With the new release of Kubuntu just 3 days away, many will be wondering if now is the time to upgrade from Hardy to Intrepid, and what will it mean for me.

One of the biggest visible changes between Hardy and Intrepid is the move from KDE 3.5 to KDE 4.1. Some have asked whether it will be possible to have KDE 3.5 instead (or along side) of KDE 4.1, and the response is no. This is a conscious and responsible decision to move forward with KDE 4, given that 3.5 is not going to be further developed, and all focus should be given to the promotion and development of the new 4.x series.

We have started a FAQ to answer users questions regarding the switch from KDE 3 to KDE 4. Please read it over if you have any concerns or questions regarding whether to switch from Hardy to Intrepid at this time.

We do encourage users to download and take the new Intrepid for a test drive. We believe that you will be pleasantly surprised at how well KDE 4.1 works, and it will continue to get better as more users and distros begin adopt KDE 4 fully.

Kubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10) - Beta Released

2008-10-03T14:28:00.003-02:30

Well, the beta is out, and we need people to test it.

New in this release is KDE 4.1.2 rather than 3.5.10, and this represents a significant change. KDE 4 is different, and not quite as feature rich, but it is the future of KDE, so getting in at this point in time make a lot of sense.

A lot of hard work has gone into making this release available for Kubuntu. Hats off to all the developers who worked on fixing bugs, back porting missing bits from the svn 4.2 tree, and general packaging and testing during the alpha stages. And especially to those brave souls who began running Intrepid during the initial Alpha release (like myself).

As I am now getting back into development, I have made it my mission to try and work on some of the features missing from 4.1 that we all loved in 3.5. If you have any suggestions, please let me know and I will add them to my todo list.

If you know of a package which exists, but is not in the Kubuntu repo's, let me know and I will see if I can help get it packaged and added to the repo.

My current project is to build a plasmoid for bookmarks/favorites. I really miss that feature, so, once I learn the plasma API, it's my first project. Other than that, I'll play it by ear.

Kicking Windows to the Door

2008-05-07T10:19:00.004-02:30

Ok, so you have made the leap to the world of Linux, but perhaps you still dual boot to run Adobe PhotoShop or some other program due to not knowing if there are equivalent (or near equivalent) programs available under Linux. What can you do?

Well, luckily, there are a variety of ways to kick the Windows habit.

1) Wine - Wine is a Windows compatibility layer, and it runs under Linux. It will allow you to run a variety of Windows programs under Linux. There is an application database you can search to see if your program will work with wine, and how to install it. If your program is not listed, you can still try and install it by running the install.exe (or setup program) with wine. Please submit your experience to the applications database so others may learn from your experience.

2) Linux App Finder - This site categorizes a list of common Windows programs and maps them to equivalent Linux programs. Depending on what features you require/use, the Linux alternative may provide a reasonable functional equivalent. However, for more complex Windows programs and the power user, you may need to experiment with one or more alternatives to get the right mix for you.

Open Source Census

2008-04-17T19:44:00.002-02:30

Here is another great initiative:

""The Open Source Census is the first collaborative, global project to count the number of installations for each open source software package. We realize that’s pretty ambitious, but we figure you have to think big. Of course, we know we can’t count every single installation of open source software in the world, but we believe it’s possible to obtain a sample large enough to be representative.""

Wow!

Ok, so, what do you do? Head on over to osscensus.org and sign up. Once registered, you need to follow the steps to download a discovery tool and run it on your system.

If you are using Kubuntu, you already have Java and likely Ruby, so you can choose the smallest download (~5MB). Otherwise, you can download the normal one (~40MB).

Once downloaded, you need to extract the archive somewhere. Then from the command line, run the discovery tool, providing the correct options and your assigned census code.

Pretty simple.

How to Recover from System Crashes or Sluggishness

2008-04-17T17:45:00.007-02:30

Most of you have come to realize that Linux is really stable, and rarely suffers from a complete system crash. However, on those rare occasions that it does, what should you do? What if you have a runaway process that is eating up all your CPU or memory, and the system had become non-responsive? Would you simply power-cycle or wave the three fingered salute?

Well, if you are not a total Linux geek, you probably will resort to using the CTRL+ALT+DEL method, and failing that a hard power off. In the Windows world, this was acceptable, as these really were the only options you had available. However, for Linux, this is not the case.

How many times under Windows did you have a crash and then had to hard reset, only to find your file system was corrupted and often unbootable? The same can happen under Linux (though generally less likely), if you simply power off.

So, you ask, what should I do? Well, since you asked, here are some steps you can try to safely and cleanly recover from a non-responsive system/desktop under Kubuntu (some of the suggestions may be specific to KDE/Kubuntu - ymmv).

1) CTRL+ALT+ESC - Kill Window

If your system is sluggish due to a hanging application, you can hit the CTRL+ALT+ESC key sequence and the next window you left-click will be killed. Be warned, you can click the background/desktop and kill it using this method as it is treated just like any other application/window.

2) CTRL+ESC - ksysguard

If you cannot kill the offending application using method 1) above (e.g. there is no GUI or killing the app you though was the problem did not resolve the issue), then you can bring up the process table (similar to windows task manager) and look for the application sucking up all the memory or CPU time. Select it from the list, and hit Kill to terminate it.

If you are familiar with the Linux command line, you can achieve the same via running Konsole and typing using the command 'ps -A' or 'top' to examine the same process list. To kill the offending application, you need to issue the 'kill' command followed by the process ID (or PID) (e.g. kill 9999).

Instead of using kill, you may need to use the killall command, which can be passed an application name, like 'killall konqueror', which will kill all instances of konqueror (this is not the same as killing one instance of konqueror via a single PID).

3) CTRL+ALT+F1 - Switch to first text console

Your system has six virtual terminals predefined, and can be accessed via CTRL+ALT+F1 through CTRL+ALT+F6 consecutively. If the desktop is frozen/hung, and the first two options cannot be performed, then you can use this method to bring up a text based console. Login with your usual name and password, and using step 2 above, you should be able to find the offending applicatiion (assuming there is one that stands out - i.e. has all your memory tied up or using 99% CPU).

4) CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE - Restart X server (Desktop/GUI)

If that doesn’t work, you might want to restart your Desktop using the CTRL-ALT-Backspace combo. Beware, that this will kill all your Desktop apps currently running, and you may lose any changes to files not recently saved or auto-backed up. This should kick you back to the login manager. If it does not, then the X Server may have failed to re-initialize, try the next option.

5) CTRL+ALT+DEL - Reboot System

You can attempt to use CTRL+ALT+DEL from the Desktop/GUI or one of the Virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F1). If you do it via the Desktop, you may be given the Shutdown Dialog with options to Reboot or Shutdown or the system may just silently reboot. Sometimes this will not work, and you must invoke the CTRL+ALT+DEL via one of the Virtual terminals, which will perform a full reboot.

6) ALT+SysRq - Magic SysRq (System Request) Key

If none of the above work, you can try this last option before resorting to a hard power-cycle. This method has sometimes been called "Skinny Elephants", "Raise the Elephant" or "Raising Skinny Elephants". Not sure where the phrase originated, but here's what it refers to: "Raising Skinny Elephants Is Utterly Boring"

Taking the first letter from each word in the phrase, and you have the key sequence you need to hit to safely sync the disks, terminate running processes, unmount file systems and finally reboot.

r - put keyboard in raw mode
s - sync the disk
e - terminate all processes
i - kill all processes
u - remount all filesystems read only
b - reboot the system

Now you see why someone came up with the silly phrase you will now never forget (just like elephants never forget).

Here is the full key sequence (remember to use the left ALT key and the SysRq key is the PrtSc key if not labeled on your keyboard):

Alt+SysRq+r
Alt+SysRq+s
Alt+SysRq+e
Alt+SysRq+i
Alt+SysRq+u
Alt+SysRq+b

Please wait 2 or 3 seconds between hitting each key sequence to allow for each step to complete. Especially if you have a lot of running services/processes.

When your system boots, you may be prompted for a file system check. If you are, please ensure you let the system check and repair if necessary.

7) Power-cycle - Power off or Reset

You should never do this. The system will hate you for this and will eventually lead to some sort of file corruption of lost data. This is as an absolute last resort (i.e. keyboard is not responding to any key sequences above).

----

I hope this is useful to someone :)

Inkscape - Tutorials from Heathenx

2008-03-28T16:00:00.005-02:30

While researching various tools for manipulating SVG's, primarily Inkscape, I came across a wonderful gem of a site that I just had to share.

Some of you have probably already heard of this site, but nevertheless, it is an awesome site to learn Inkscape.

The site is called http://screencasters.heathenx.org, and contains many video tutorials, called screencasts, which demonstrate various features of Inkscape. If you want to learn to make some really nice looking web art or graphics for brochures, etc, then you need Inkscape and this site will get you up and using it in no time.

Hats off to Heathenx!

Hacking xpad kernel module for Mad Catz Beat Pad

2008-03-10T12:36:00.005-02:30

I spent three days reading various forums and posts on adding support to xpad for one controller or another. Every post pointed towards downloading the newest CVS source from the Xbox-Linux repository. After unsuccessfully trying to make the new xpad driver detect my controller, I contacted one of the maintainers for the xpad kernel module. He suggested I go back and attempt to add support directly into the kernel version (which is version 0.0.6).

Here is what I did to make this work (you should be working from konsole or similar to run any of the sudo commands - keep this terminal window open and work from it):

1) Install required packages (build environment)

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential automake1.9

2) Install linux kernel source (where we will get the xpad.c file)

sudo apt-get install linux-source

3) Prepare xpad directory and extract xpad.c from linux-source tarball.

cd
mkdir xpad
cd xpad
tar -jxvf /usr/src/linux-source-`uname -r | awk -F"-" '{print $1}'`.tar.bz2 --strip 4 linux-source-`uname -r | awk -F"-" '{print $1}'`/drivers/input/joystick/xpad.c

Note: The above tar command should be entered all on one line. The `uname -r | awk -F"-" '{print $1}'` is used to detect your kernel version (and hence the source). If different, replace that code with the kernel version (like 2.6.24).

4) Now we need a Makefile to be able to build the module. Open kate (or favourite text editor like nano or vi) and paste the following. There should be a single tab (and not spaces) in the line following all: and install:. These will not paste correctly, so you have to make the change in the file before saving it. Save it as Makefile under the xpad directory.

KERNEL_PATH?=/usr/src/linux-headers-$(shell uname -r)

EXTRA_CFLAGS=-I$(shell pwd)

obj-m:=xpad.o

all:
$(MAKE) modules -C $(KERNEL_PATH) SUBDIRS=$(shell pwd)

install:
cp -f xpad.ko /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/kernel/drivers/input/joystick

5) Patching xpad.c for Mad Catz Beat Pad. According to my lsusb output, I have a 0x0738:0x4740 device ID. This is important, and the basis for what we need to hack into the driver. Save the output below to a file called xpad.patch under your xpad directory (using kate, nano, vi, etc).

--- xpad-0.0.6/xpad.c.orig 2008-03-09 23:58:32.000000000 -0230
+++ xpad-0.0.6/xpad.c 2008-03-10 00:39:56.000000000 -0230
@@ -121,6 +121,7 @@
{ 0x0738, 0x4540, "Mad Catz Beat Pad", MAP_DPAD_TO_BUTTONS, XTYPE_XBOX },
{ 0x0738, 0x4556, "Mad Catz Lynx Wireless Controller", MAP_DPAD_TO_AXES, XTYPE_XBOX },
{ 0x0738, 0x4716, "Mad Catz Wired Xbox 360 Controller", MAP_DPAD_TO_AXES, XTYPE_XBOX360 },
+ { 0x0738, 0x4740, "Mad Catz Beat Pad", MAP_DPAD_TO_BUTTONS, XTYPE_XBOX360 },
{ 0x0738, 0x6040, "Mad Catz Beat Pad Pro", MAP_DPAD_TO_BUTTONS, XTYPE_XBOX },
{ 0x0c12, 0x8802, "Zeroplus Xbox Controller", MAP_DPAD_TO_AXES, XTYPE_XBOX },
{ 0x0c12, 0x8810, "Zeroplus Xbox Controller", MAP_DPAD_TO_AXES, XTYPE_XBOX },
@@ -182,6 +183,7 @@
{ USB_INTERFACE_INFO('X', 'B', 0) }, /* X-Box USB-IF not approved class */
{ USB_DEVICE_INTERFACE_PROTOCOL(0x045e, 0x028e, 1) }, /* X-Box 360 controller */
{ USB_DEVICE_INTERFACE_PROTOCOL(0x1430, 0x4748, 1) }, /* RedOctane Guitar Hero X-plorer */
+ { USB_DEVICE_INTERFACE_PROTOCOL(0x0738, 0x4740, 1) }, /* Mad Catz Beat Pad */
{ }
};

Note: There should be 17 lines in this file. Make sure none of the lines wrapped with a newline, or the patch file will not work.

Now, run this command (from konsole/terminal) to patch the xpad.c file:

patch -p0 < xpad.patch

You now have a patched xpad.c for use with the Mad Catz Beat Pad (0x0738:0x4740). You can alter the patch above to achieve similar for other Xbox 360 controllers (not wireless, which likely require the newer drivers - see reference site listed at end).

6) Compiling and installing the drivers

make && sudo make install && sudo rmmod xpad && sudo depmod -a && modprobe xpad

Note: Pay attention to any output. Do not worry if it complains about no module to remove (maybe it wasn't loaded). If no other errors, then it should now have compiled, installed and loaded.

7) Please see reference below for additional details, troubleshooting, and the general help guide for Xbox controllers under Ubuntu (though the guide specifies using a newer driver - currently it's 0.1.7).

References:

Install and configure Microsoft® Xbox™ and Xbox 360™ controllers under Ubuntu 7.10

Stepmania under Kubuntu

2008-03-10T12:06:00.002-02:30

Well, I figured I'd try something different and so I downloaded Stepmania to see what all the buzz was about. Unfortunately, there are no packages available for this program in the Ubuntu repositories. I tried a couple of deb's I found online, but they would not work with Hardy Heron, so I resorted to downloading the binary tar file for 3.9 directly from their web site.

I was able to easily extract the program, download some songs from their web site, and run stepmania. The next challenge was getting a Dance Mat to work under Kubuntu. I have a Mad Catz Beat Pad, but it is not presently supported using the xpad driver. In order to make this work, I will have to hack the driver and patch in support.

Bash and command line (terminal)

2008-03-03T09:57:00.005-03:30

OK, so you've undoubtedly come across some problem and found a post which says you need to open a terminal and run some series of commands. You ask yourself, what is this terminal and why am I typing commands and what do they mean?

Well, using a terminal program like konsole or xterm simply allows you to access the bash shell from your session. Think of the bash shell as a DOS session on steroids.

Bash stands for the "Bourne Again SHell", and is a collection of commands which allow you to program via a series of commands, scripts and system programs which can either be called directly from the CLI (command line interface) or saved in a text file and executed directly from there or at some later time.

In fact, all the core start-up scripts for Ubuntu's (and most Linux) system are bash scripts, which tell the system what services to start/stop and when to do this.

I highly recommend that anyone using a Linux distro learn at least some basic bash. There are plenty of great resources on the net, like the Linux Documentation Project and the Bash homepage.

To give you a brief example, I'll explain some common commands:

cd - change directory (ex: cd /etc/apt). Use this command to specify a directory to work from called CWD (current working directory). You can also type 'cd' by itself to return you to your home directory, or use 'cd ..' to go up/back one directory.

ls - list contents of the CWD or directory/file (if specified) (ex: ls *.odt).

rm - remove a file (i.e. delete it) (ex. rm test.txt)

mv - move/rename a file (ex. mv *.odt Documents/)

man - man page which give more explanations than I have on above (ex. man ls)

Anyway, be adventurous and read a litle on bash. You will find it is not all that difficult or scary to perform simple and basic tasks with ease.

Pay it Forward Works for Linux Too - Part II

2008-02-19T11:57:00.006-03:30

Well, it's only been a short while, and I have already seen two of my friends switch a friend each to Kubuntu.

It seems the concept of "pay it forward" may actually work in the real world. I guess time will tell.

You may also find this post on the Ubuntu Forums to be an interesting read on what people find is their last hang-up on switching completely to Ubuntu, or what finally tipped the scales for them.

For some, it's a working Adobe PhotoShop via Wine. For others it's the availability of a comparable Office Package. Whatever their reasons, people are continuing to make the switch daily.

Recover from Adept-Manager Failures - Part II

2008-02-19T11:44:00.003-03:30

Here's a brief follow-up to my recent blog on Adept-Manager Recovery.

If you still have an issue with Adept having failed to update or complete a package install, it is likely that one of the post install scripts is hung up on something.

Here is something additional to try:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get autoremove

Basically, make sure you are up to date (a new package can sometimes fix the dep problem). Then try and perform any updates via upgrade. Finally, I have found that running the autoremove command actually triggers the postinstall scripts to execute after they have hung up on a failed package.

Now, you should be back to a stable system, try running your update/upgrade again and you should show no packages left in a bad state and not partially installed. If you still do, there may be another issue.

Feel free to comment, or ask for suggestions if you are stuck with and Adept or apt problem.

Recover from Adept-Manager Failures

2008-02-08T12:43:00.000-03:30

Periodically, Adept-Manager will fail during an update. Though this should not occur, it will mean that you may have to resort to the command line to fix.

To open a terminal, hit the following key sequence:

ALT+F2

This will bring up the run command dialog. Type 'konsole' without the quotes and then hit the Run button.

This will launch konsole, the KDE Terminal, and a new bash shell (the Bourne again shell, similar to MS-DOS, but more powerful).

In the konsole, you now need to type a few commands to ensure the integrity of the Adept package database.

Step 1:

Update the repository database by entering the following:

sudo apt-get update

This will update the db, so please make sure you are connected to the internet when you do this. You may get a message at the end indicating additional commands to run. If you do, please follow this and enter those commands. Remember to prefix them with 'sudo' as they will require Admin rights to work.

For example, you may get a prompt that there was an error, and to run 'dpkg --configure -a'. If you do, this is what you would enter:

sudo dpkg --configure -a

If you have to run the reconfigure command, it is likely due to a package wanting to overwrite a file. In most cases it should be safe to hit 'y' to take the maintainers version. This should resoilve the conflict. If not, proceed with additional commands below

Step2:

You may need to run a check on the database, to ensure no broken dependencies. Run the following.

sudo apt-get check

This should be enough to get you back up and running.

Pay it Forward Works for Linux Too

2008-02-08T12:24:00.000-03:30

In the spirit of "Pay it Forward", I had previously introduced a bunch of friends to Kubuntu Linux, and they have embraced it completely - so much so, that they have begun passing Kubuntu along to other friends and colleagues of theirs.

This is a great example of how well Kubuntu works today, and what a few people with some initiative can accomplish. Imagine if each person who switched to Linux was able to get one friend or collegue to try it out and they in turn make the switch.

Realistically, this probably won't happen, but if just one in 10 people you introduce it to was able to convert someone, the numbers would begin to add up. Even my Mom is proudly telling everyone she uses Kubuntu, and surely that's a testament to the power of Linux today.

How many people have you converted to Linux

2008-01-21T09:47:00.001-03:30

Ok, so I got to thinking... how do people get to know Linux, which distro do they go with any why? I guess, for many of the new users, it's whatever their friends, classmates, teachers, or place of business currently use. Over time, they may branch out and try alternatives, or stick within thier comfort zone.

Personally, I started a long time ago with Slackware. Of course, back in the early days, this was all distributed on 3.5' floppies, and I remember installing slackware from something like 30 floppies (circa 1993 I believe). Of course, things have come a long way since then, and now there are many Linux distros, each based on one of a handful of package management systems (deb, rpm, ebuild, tgz, etc).

Over the years, I have tried Red Hat, Mandrake/Mandriva, Debian, Gentoo and Kubuntu. Each of the distros have their own strengths, but for this time in my life, Kubuntu fits the bill nicely. Though, If I had to choose a distro for pure hacking and development, I would definately recommend Gentoo, as the ebuild system is top notch.

Anyway, getting back to the title of this post... how many people have you converted to linux? Well, for me, I'm sure I have sold various people over the years, which probably needed little to no coaxing. However, recently, I have begun trying to convert "non-geek" people to Linux, as in members of the common masses, who's only experience to date is point-n-stoopid from MS.

To date, I have successfully converted 8 non-technical windows people completely to Kubuntu. And when I say convert, I don't mean dual boot. I mean pure Linux only. I have to say, this has been pretty easy using Kubuntu, which has all the bells and whistles, and the recent Gutsy version has done a tremendous job on restricted drivers and media formats integration. In fact, so many things under KDE on Kubuntu are intuitive, that within weeks, I had friends showing me things I had not discovered.

So, share your experiences with conversion, good and bad, so we can learn from them.

Linux Printing...

2007-11-02T23:51:00.000-02:30

It's been a while since I had to look at printing via Linux. But seeing as my old printer has given out, and I wanted to get a new color printer capable of printing photos, I figured it was time to go and buy one.

My last printer was a Lexmark z32, which worked fine under Linux. So, assuming that Lexmark was still supporting Linux, I went out and picked up a new Lexmark z1480... first mistake. I should have done some research.

So, after picking up the printer and spending an entire day trying to beat it into submission, I finally gave up, and returned it. But not before I wrote a letter to Lexmark (probably won't make a difference).

Anyway, I used to have a HP DesignJet years ago, and I remember that it was also supported under Linux. After doing some reading, I found that HP actually does support Opensource and Linux and they have a true full featured HP driver for Linux.

Armed with this information and new hope, I went to Open Printing to see which printers are supported by HP's driver under Linux. To my surprise, there were quite a few. A quick scan through the list and I find the one I want - a HP 6980. It's reasonably priced and includes Wireless.

I'm happy to say it was painless to setup. Basically, I followed the steps in the setup guide up to the point where I had to use the windows software. At that point, I instead ran the hp-setup utility under Linux (part of the HPLIP driver project).

Wow. Effortless.

I have to say I am impressed with the support HP has provided the community. Great job and hats of to them.

Web Browsing - Webkit, Gecko, KHTML... etc.

2007-10-24T09:37:00.000-02:30

One of the most infuriating things I find is that webbrowsing is inconsistent at best using them. Let's take, for example, Konqueror.

I open Hotmail one day and it works, then the next it doesn't. Similarly with Google, I have to set a browser agent, and then not all the features work. Why?

Well, there are many reasons:

1) Web developers who use broswer/engine specfic enhancements often have checks in the HTML for a specific minimum browser. If the check fails, either the site is crippled or just plain will not work. I disagree with browser extensions to the HTML language in general, and especially designers who do not allow for other browsers to work.

2) Designers who do not use any extensions, but still feel the need to limit the web site to Firefox/IE. This is quite evident by the sites which work 100% when setting the browser agent. If this actually works, then the site should be designed to simply work without these silly checks.

3) Too many browsers/engines to develop and test for. This leads to inadequate development from the web designers as they cannot test all browsers and engines to the same degree. This means they pick the ones with the most exposure and/or market share.

How do we address these points?

1) Browser specific enhancements - Instead of web developers testing for a specific browser and failing immediately, why not write a test for the feature. If the feature exists, then use it; otherwise, implement a work around. Better still, do not use browser/engine dependant hacks on the global internet. Restrict them to internal corporate use, where the browser choice is more deterministic. As a web developer, you have the responsibility for your entire audience and their overall experience.

2) Using browser checks for no apparent reason - this is just lazy and bad web page design. If you have a web page with standard Java/JavaScript and no specific IE/Firefox extension requirements, then don't limit your audiences choice of browser by simply sticking in random "if browser agent != IE/Firefox then cripple/die". If you have no reason to require a specific browser, then simply test for the features you need, like java, and if they work, great.

3) Browsers and engines - This is where things get personal, and there will be clashing of personalities as developers all scramble about claiming "my browser is better" and "this engine is the best". Grow up. The reality is that if we all want to make the best browser and engine for the internet, we must all contribute and work together. In Konqueror, we have KHTML and the great opportunity to use Webkit - a long time fork of KHTML, which is now used in Safari, the MAC browser. Why is it important? Well, from a development point of view, we have Apple backing changes, which has it's merits. In addition to Apple, we have TrollTech which is incorporating Webkit into Qt. If web developers work with Apple and TrollTech to ensure web pages load correctly, wouldn't KDE benefit from using Webkit as a backend? I would certainly agree.

Look, the bottom line is people who develop KDE and KHTML are passionate. I get it. I really do. However, let's use that passion for the betterment of everyone. If that means taking a fork of Webkit and adding some KDE specific fixes to the engine, then let's do it. At least we are moving forward and will be able to get some better browsing along the way.

I've seen a few blogs recently about this, and I am disappointed that there appears to be no clear decision. Are we still so disorganized, that we are arguing over which engine? Look, if it means that much to the KHTML developers, when not allow Konqueror to support different backends. Let users decide if they want Webkit or KHTML and see which fares better. I assume this could be done...

Anyway, here's to hoping for a consistant feature rich browsing experience from my favorite desktop and browser - KDE/Konqueror.

Knetworkmanager in Portage....

2007-08-31T10:24:00.000-02:30

I just noticed that Knetworkmanager was recently submitted to portage (Aug 23rd).

It has support for NetworkManager's vpn plugins as well (OpenVPN, PPTP, and VPNC).

This is great news. Currently, I had been maintaining a live build on KnetworkManager in the Xeffects overlay, which really needed some love and attention. Now, with version 0.2 actually in portage, I can remove this from the overlay in favor of a static/stable build.

Kblogger - Promising Blogger Applet

2007-08-27T19:16:00.000-02:30

Just found this new KDE Applet called Kblogger. Seems promising.

I just posted this test message via it.

I think it still needs some tweaking, but nonetheless, it's interesting.

Xeffects cleanup and some Portage news...

2007-08-27T15:23:00.000-02:30

Well, two exciting things happening in the Xeffects overlay for Gentoo; a) Lot's of QA clean-up to make things better for the end user and b) a proposal by the Xeffects admins and some Gentoo developers to make a new Desktop Effects Herd.

What does this mean? Well, once the clean-up is done, we will be looking at moving some apps from Xeffects into regular portage and maintaining them officially. Finally, Gentoo will have some official bleeding edge support for things like Compiz-Fusion, that any user can test spin without having to use layman or setup a cumbersome overlay via svn or something similar.

A wider audience will also mean more bugs will be revealed and hopefully we can get them fixed upstream quickly. This will help make the entire experience better for all.

I'll follow-up when I have more news on this.

Top Blockbuster not to see this Summer - Transformers

2007-07-03T21:37:00.001-02:30

Ok, so I just came back from seeing the Micheal Bay movie - Transformers. What an abyssmal piece of Movie making.

To all you fans, here's a big piece of advice, save $20 and go to Blockbuster and rent the cartoon version. Much more satisfaction.

Ok, to dissect the movie - no spoilers as there's nothing left that can be spoiled:

1) You know that annoying Jar Jar from Star Wars? Well, I think I found where he ended up! His new Alias is Frenzy, and he's every bit as annoying. The animation was horrible looking. The robot never really looked like anything but a tangly mess of wires. The campy robot acting got tired after the first 30 second clip; and yet, like a horribly bad budget version of The Terminator, he kept coming back.

2) Assuming I can forgive the obvious ploy to appeal to the kids from 1) above, I cannot forgive the fact that 1 hour into this travesty, I still haven't identified with any of the Autobots. I almost wish they would get their butts kicked. Thus far, the only identification is with Sam, played by Shia LaBeouf. However, if we want to keep somewhat with the tradition of the original Transformers cartoon, this movie should be strictly about the Autobots and the Decepticons. The humans are there only by chance, and we really should have had much more dialog and character development for the Autobots, at the very least.

3) I think the thing that really killed the movie is the lack of a good plot/story. How in gods name are they going to make any sequels, which apparently they already have planned. Oh well, at least it couldn't get much worse than this. No expectations. The sad thing is, this movie will make lots of money, for all the wrong reasons, and they will make sequels which will probably make just as much money and be just as bad.

4) Finally, here's my last real beef. Now, to all you would be filmmakers, listen up. When you shoot an action sequence, make sure the audience can follow the action. There's absolutely no point in having a significant portion of your actions sequences in 'blur-motion'. And this film is rife with "I can't see a bloody thing". It would have been much more effective to have liberal doses of 'slow-mo' on the critical hits for effect. All I remember of the 'big' actions sequences are a yellow-blue blur of motion. Let's see if the director(s) for the sequel has any better visual eye for producing action fight sequences. Maybe they'll consult some of the Kung Fu movie expects.

Anyway, now that I'm so disappointed, I think I'll crack a six pack.

State of the Nation...

2007-04-17T11:21:00.000-02:30

Well, no - not really... more a state of what I am working on currently (or more accurately - haven't been).

I've been pretty busy with work as of late, just having returned from Mississausa for our quarterly managers meeting.

Anyway, it's been a number of weeks since I last provided any updates, so here goes:

1) Wine-Doors is progressing nicely. I have been testing snapshots of the application on and off, and I think this is going to be a great little application.

2) Bug fixes and general ebuild updates - it's a constant battle to ensure we keep up with the latest portage revisions. Most times I get the ebuilds bumped on the same day, however, if I do not, wait 24 hours before posting a bump request as a courtesy. No one likes a zero day bump request

3) Teaching myself python. Yep, I went out and bought my first dummies guide for python. I already know how to program in about 10+ languages, so python should be a breeze. Really, all I need are the basics for the syntax, etc. Anyway, the goal here is to get up to speen on python so I can possibly write some screenlets myself :)

Anyway, I hope to get back to tackling some of the items on my TODO list soon.

Screenlets - nice little desktop widgets

2007-03-23T10:10:00.000-02:30

I found this neat application for compositing window managers like Beryl and Compiz called Screenlets.

Here's a screenshot of version 0.0.6:

I have added version a pre-release of version 0.0.8 to the xeffects overlay. Try it, I'm sure you will like it. It has great potential, and I cannot wait for the official 0.1.0 release.

KNetworkManager for Gentoo

2007-03-18T03:50:00.000-02:30

I've been struggling with trying to make my Gentoo install as user friendly as possible. One of the big hurdles has always been the networking. Setting up aliases for net.eth0, net.wlan0, modifying scripts for doing wireless connections, and trying to get things to behave properly and autodetect when I am running wired versus wireless.

Most other distros have this pretty much sorted out. But Gentoo, it's still behind in some of these "it justs works" aspects as it is a tweakers distribution.

Anyway, I have managed to get KNetworkManager added to the xeffects overlay thanks to Nesl247 (one of the other maintainers). Theres a mini-howto I posted up here.

Basically, KNetworkManager handles all the wired and wireless connections from a small systray applet. This applet is a frontend to NetworkManager, and uses HAL and DBUS to control starting and stopping the various network interfaces. Pretty neat, and requires no mucking around to make this happen automatically. You can pretty much seamlessly switch from wired to wireless to offline and back.

Kwine - KDE Wine integration

2007-03-15T15:06:00.000-02:30

A while back someone posted up a package for better Wine integration into KDE. This appeared on KDE-Look, and seeing as I was both a Wine and KDE fan, I figured I'd try it out.

First, I did the manual compile thing. Worked fine. Then, the next logical step was to package it up for inclusion in an overlay. Well, I had this done a loooong time ago, and it's been sitting in my local overlay for ever.

Anyway, it's now hosted in Xeffects overlay.

Getting organized...

2007-03-13T11:38:00.000-02:30

I'm extremely forgetful. So, to help, I've generated a TODO list and added to the Blog.

If you have requested a change/addition/correction and I have not yet implemented, and you do not see it on my TODO list, leave me a note and I will add it. At least this will be a flag for me to get to it eventually.

Updates for Kickoff...

2007-03-13T11:12:00.000-02:30

I have been getting some requests for changes to kickoff from the Gentoo, Xeffects team and users.

Here are a couple of the highlights:

Make the applications menu update on hover

The Menu should be dockable

Add in translations

As well, there are things I would like to implement like themable menu (it's easy to change the icons/images, but I'd like a nice theme engine integrated into kcontrol).

Also, there are some specific defines for KDELIBS_SUSE that I think I could enable .. just gotta reasearch more.

Oh, and I want to get the latest snapshot patch from the KDE tree for SUSE kickoff (ver 640621 at this time).

So, number one on my list is update to latest snapshot... currently in progress. THe second will be to implement the hover function for the applications menu. Both are fairly easy.

To make the menu dockable... not sure about that one. Will need some research. And the translations... I may be able to hack my way through this, but I wouldn't hold my breath - yet. I'm still fairly green with hacking KDE.

KDE4 SVN...

2007-03-09T01:35:00.000-03:30

It's been a while since I tried the KDE SVN build, so I figured I'd try it out again. Following the guide posted here, I was able to successfully set up a test environment and build Qt, kdelibs and kdebase.

Here's a screenshot of kwrite...

Beryl without emerald...

2007-03-06T10:29:00.000-03:30

Ok, so the original ebuild for beryl meta x11-wm/beryl forced the user to require emerald and consequently emerald-themes and libwnck. However, since both Heliodor and Aquamarine are available as alternatives to emerald, I felt it was time to provide a choice to the user.

The ebuild would allow you to choose to add aquamarine (via USE="kde") and/or heliodor (via USE="gnome") but not to drop emerald. This was probably a good thing while aquamarine and heliodor we fairly new and maybe not as stable. Now, they seem pretty stable, so if you want to make the switch to one of those and not have emerald, it should be possible while using the meta ebuild for beyl.

To make this happen, we needed two things:

1) Modify the beryl meta ebuild
2) Patch the beryl-manager to hide the emerald theme manager option (if not installed)

The second item is purely cosmetic, but needed to be done.

Here's the original patch I applied to beryl-manager-0.1.9999.2:


--- beryl-manager-0.1.9999.2/src/main.c 2007-02-13 16:14:41.000000000 -0330
+++ beryl-manager-0.1.9999.2/src/main.c.new     2007-03-05 12:17:29.000000000 -0330
@@ -1149,6 +1149,8 @@
        gtk_widget_show(mitem);
        g_signal_connect(mitem, "activate", G_CALLBACK(startApp),
                                         "beryl-settings");
+       if (detect_app("emerald-theme-manager"))
+       {
        mitem = gtk_image_menu_item_new_with_label(_("Emerald Theme Manager"));
        gtk_image_menu_item_set_image(GTK_IMAGE_MENU_ITEM(mitem),
                make_image(PIXMAPS_DIR "/emerald-theme-manager-icon.png"));
@@ -1156,6 +1158,7 @@
        gtk_widget_show(mitem);
        g_signal_connect(mitem, "activate", G_CALLBACK(startApp),
                                         "emerald-theme-manager");
+       }

        mitem = gtk_separator_menu_item_new();
        gtk_menu_shell_append(GTK_MENU_SHELL(menu), mitem);

I applied this patch to use detect_app from beryl-manager to try and see if emerald is installed. If not, then do not add the menu item. Pretty simple, but effective fix. Nesl247 has since modified this patch and committed to upstream, so it's in berl SVN now and will be available in the next release candidate and/or beryl 0.2.0.

Now that we have a clean beryl-manager, we can modify the beryl meta ebuild to remove the dependancy on emerald. We need to be careful, as the user should choose at least one window decorator to use. So here is the diff showing the changes:


--- beryl-0.1.9999.2.ebuild     2007-03-06 10:42:45.000000000 -0330
+++ /usr/portage/local/layman/xeffects/x11-wm/beryl/beryl-0.1.9999.2.ebuild     2007-03-05 16:54:52.000000000 -0330
@@ -11,16 +11,33 @@
 LICENSE="GPL-2"
 SLOT="0"
 KEYWORDS="~amd64 ~ppc ~ppc64 ~x86"
-IUSE="kde gnome"
+IUSE="kde gnome noemerald"

 RDEPEND="~x11-plugins/beryl-plugins-${PV}
-       ~x11-wm/emerald-${PV}
+       !noemerald? ( ~x11-wm/emerald-${PV} )
        kde? ( ~x11-wm/aquamarine-${PV} )
        gnome? ( ~x11-wm/heliodor-${PV} )
        ~x11-misc/beryl-settings-${PV}
        ~x11-misc/beryl-manager-${PV}
        >=x11-libs/cairo-1.2"

+pkg_setup() {
+       if use noemerald && ! use kde && ! use gnome; then
+               echo
+               ewarn "You have not selected any window decorator. For the meta"
+               ewarn "install, you should choose at least one of either emerald,"
+               ewarn "kde (aquamarine) or gnome (heliodor) decorators. Although"
+               ewarn "you may proceed without, you will have no window decorations"
+               ewarn "unless you enable emerald, kde, or gnome (unless provided"
+               ewarn "externally via another package)."
+               echo
+               ewarn "To enable the default window decorator, please disable the"
+               ewarn "noemerald use flag. Alternatively, set use kde or gnome for"
+               ewarn "aquamarine and/or heliodor, respectively."
+               echo
+       fi
+}
+
 pkg_postinst() {
        ewarn "DO NOT report bugs to Gentoo's bugzilla"
        einfo "Please report all bugs to http://trac.gentoo-xeffects.org"

What did we do here? Well, we added a noemerald use flag. The reason for noemerald is that we still want the default behaviour to be "let's install emerald" and optionally add aquamarine and/or heliodor. If the user sets the use flag noemerald explicitly, then they do not get emerald by default. This should prevent installs without a window decorator.

I also added a check/warning if the user mistakenly chose no window decorator by enabling noemerald and not setting kde or gnome use flags.

Anyway, that's the current update...

Drop Shadows with Kickoff menu

2007-03-02T12:20:00.000-03:30

I'm testing out the drop shadow patch for kickoff menu used by kicker. The patch is against kdelibs to allow kicker to display a drop shadow around the kickoff menu.

Currently, kicker has this drop shadow coded into the UI but it doesn't display as I never applied the patch against kdelibs. This is not a problem, and the only side effect is that the menu doesn't have any visible border to differentiate it from a white background, which make it look odd.

So, I just tested the patch against kdelibs, and it looks great. The main issue now is integration. This drop shadow should be able to be turned on/off via the Menu drop shadow setting in kcontrol under Appearance & Themes/Style/Effects. Currently this is not the case.

Why is this important? First of all, is should be integrated for consistancy. If you disable menu shadows (e.g. due to low system resources), then this effect should be global. Secondly, this does not play nice with Beryl when you have shadows enabled in Beryl and also have enabled Menu Drop Shadows (which this patch does for Kickoff menu).

The current solution for Beryl users (in general) is to disable the KDE Menu drop shadows if you have enabled shadows in Beryl. However, the patch to kdelibs, as it stands, does not allow you to disable the drop shadow around the kickoff.

So, expect in the next few days for me to release an updated kdelibs build which enables drop shadows. Hopefully, I can get the whole enable/disable via Menu drop shadows figured out so that it works both for Beryl users and non-beryl users alike.

Please see my post on xeffects located here for additional info.

qt-copy in xeffects...

2007-03-01T15:32:00.000-03:30

So, a while ago, Gentoo user nxsty (aka Simon) put together an overlay for an enhanced Qt, based on the KDE snapshot qt-copy. The snapshot contained enhancements to the free Qt provided by Trolltech.

Nxsty has since moved away from Gentoo, and this left the overlay in limbo, without a maintainer. There was a copy of this build included as part of the pertty overlay, which I once helped maintain, and is now included in the xeffects overlay.

To help keep this alive, I have spoken with Nxsty and figured out how to get new qt-copy snapshots. These new snapshots are now alive and kicking in the xeffects overlay as of qt-3.3.8.

To find out more, check out my post on the xeffects forums.

Xeffects new additions...

2007-02-27T15:47:00.000-03:30

Been busy for the last few days, so haven't posted.

Here's a brief update on what's new in the xeffects overlay for KDE:

1) Taskbar - Compiz : This is a drop in replacement for the Kicker taskbar applet that attempts to play nice with compositing WM's (like beryl and compiz).

2) Kde Autostart manager : Ever wonder how to tell an app to start automatically from a default or new KDE session (other than saving the session)? This little gem provides a front end to your .~/.kde/Autostart folder and allows you to add apps from your K-Menu to Autostart.

3) KIO Resouces : Added a new KDE IO Slave which allows you to type a URL like resources:/ to access configs, wallpapers, etc., and not having to remember that these could be stored local to your user, or system-wide. For example, resources:/wallpapers will show all wallpapers available. You can add new ones and it will save to your local .kde dir.

Anyway, for additional info, please read the full posts on the xeffects forums under KDE/Kickoff.

-Rod

Kicker updated...

2007-02-19T13:44:00.000-03:30

Now that I have the ability to control the font size for the Kickoff menu via the Kcontrol module, I have reverted the font adjustments from the SUSE patch back to their original defaults.

Users can now use the Kcontrol "Relative font size" setting under the Kickoff Menu tab settings to adjust the menu fonts up/down according to their taste.

Whew... now I can get on to fixing up kdelibs and the Drop Shadow support and integrate that in (I missed that from the original set of patchings... oops).

Kcontrol updates again...

2007-02-19T10:58:00.000-03:30

I just finished some additional work on the kcontrol module integration for the new Kickoff menu from SUSE.

After a few days of playing around with Kdevelop's interface designer, I think I now have a better handle on the whole UI design via XML. I never realized how easy it actually is to integrate new changes into KDE and have them automatically work without any real effort. Cudos to the designers on making such a great environment.

Anyway, here is the latest screen grab from kcontrol...

Beryl, AIGLX and Intel...

2007-02-16T16:21:00.000-03:30

I am amazed everyday at the work being done on Beryl. I started back last summer, working with a couple of people trying to get Xgl and compiz working under Gentoo. We spent long hours making packages, install scripts, etc., just to make it run.

Back then, there we a couple of basic plugins like cube, wobbly windows, and basic window decorations. Today, there are a plethora of plugins included with Beryl, and more being developed everyday.

Of course, Beryl is a fork of Compiz, and for Gentoo, a couple of us maintain an overlay called Xeffects which has Beryl among other things.

For me, I have an Acer 9412 Laptop with an Intel 945GME, and I can tell you, that everything is sweet. Now, even the water plugin (which was previously not working on Intel) works wonderful.

2007-02-15T16:58:00.000-03:30

Well, I got inspired and started digging through the SUSE Kickoff branch and found some useful additions for the Kcontrol module.

I figured I'd try and integrate them into my Gentoo Kcontrol ebuild and found that it was no trouble at all.

First off, it now has the ability to select between the Legacy K-Menu and the new Kickoff (SUSE) menu via a dropdown.

Then, further down, I added a section to allow modifying some of the other hidden options. I still have a couple of more to add to the Kickoff Menu section, but that will happen later.

The module also now intelligently disables/enables certain areas depending on what features are actually available for the currently selected menu.

Kcontrol updates for Kickoff...

2007-02-15T14:04:00.000-03:30

I am sure the SUSE guys are crazy busy adding Kickoff support to the Kcontrol module. I haven't had a chance to really dig through their branch and do any amount of diff's on the kcontrol program, and probably should...

Anyway, I decided to try my hand at coding some changes myself into Kcontrol, seeing as I haven't programmed that much in KDE (other than applying patches from others).

There are a couple of hidden options with the new Kickoff menu, and are presently only able to be changed via a text editor (you modify your personal kickerrc file from your .kde3.5 directory).

My plan is to integrate these options into Kcontrol and make it easy for anyone to make these changes via a GUI.

Here are the options:

ScrollFlipView	disables the scrolling in the application browser
KickoffFontPointSizeOffset	takes positive and negative values and is added to the calculated font sizes, relative to your system font size
KickoffSwitchTabsOnHover	requires a click to switch the tabs
KickoffTabBarFormat	Used to alter the Menu Tab appearance. Valid values are LabelAndIcon, LabelOnly and IconOnly.

Thus far, I have implemented ScrollFlipView and KickoffSwitchTabsOnHover.

I hope to add the remaining options in the next couple of days. Perhaps in that time I may try and take a diff of the SUSE kcontrol updates and see if they have made any other significant changes I could incorporate, rather than duplicate the effort altogether.

Gentoo KDE gets a new menu...

2007-02-13T15:25:00.000-03:30

SUSE has been working on a new menu replacement for the KDE kicker, to replace the old K Menu. This branch is called kickoff, and integrates a search bar right in the menu. There are also lot's of other interesting features, and it looks like an exciting time for KDE development and definately a better time for the end user's overall desktop experience.

So, since this work has not yet made it into the main KDE repositories, many Linux distro's are beginning to make patches from the SUSE branch, and build their own packages.

Well, I'm not one to be left behind, so off I went looking for the required patches and built kickoff for Gentoo. Once I had this working locally, I threw together the package and added it to the xeffects overlay.

I must say, this patch looks rather nice.

Standards again...

2007-02-10T12:54:00.000-03:30

So, I've been performing some updates on my computer. I am currently building OpenOffice 2.1 from source... WOW - 8 hours and still going. Of course, it could be all the compiler options I have enabled for optimization :)

Anyway, while building this, I decided to check out some of the highlights on the program and came across an interesting article.

I guess M$ is slowly realizing all they have to lose when it comes to the Open Document Format (ODF) being used by OpenOffice and KOffice (among others) and users pushing for all vendors to adopt it.

Several states in the US, the most recent being Texas, have put forth bills to require the use of ODF (or similar Open Standards) in all government agencies. If this trend continues, then perhaps M$ will start to play nice with everyone.

Linux Desktop Revolution...

2007-02-09T13:17:00.000-03:30

I been recently helping out adding improvement patches to Gentoo's distribution via the Xeffects overlay.

Gentoo is a great Linux OS which is source based. Gentoo supports managing and creating an overlay which allows you to customize individual packages.

What does this mean? Well, when people are testing modifications and improvements to things like KDE, X, etc, you can take these patch files and make an overlay to test them one Gentoo as well.

Xeffects is such an overlay, and contains fixes to KDE, as well as other desktop improvements for Gentoo (like Beryl).

Beryl is a Revolutionary way to look at your desktop and shows exactly what Linux can achieve, which is far beyond anything Vista has to offer.

Beryl is an branch of Compiz, which was originally developed as a proof of concept by Novel. The source was released to the public, and it has developed beyond a simple proof of concent into a full blown replacement window manager.

Standards Compliance... why bother!

2007-02-07T02:11:00.000-03:30

Ok, so we have all these standards bodies that are supposed to help make the playing field somewhat level and allow different software vendors to supply products that should work on all platforms.

Now, here we have M$ encouraging game vendors to adopt a DirectX 10 only approach to gaming...

1) DirectX 10 is proprietary and only runs on Vista, with no hope of a back port to XP or any other OS for that matter (not that we'd want their code bloat anyway).

2) Since it's not open source nor governed by any sensible standards body... see point # 1).

3) There already exists a great standard that allows games (and great ones at that) to run on (or easy to port to run on) just about any OS (Linux, Mac OS X, etc) - OpenGL

What I do not understand is why there isn't a bigger fuss. I guess if we were all well informed as a consumer base, then perhaps we would begin to ask the correct questions. Do I really need a new $500 video card to run this new game which requires DirectX? Of course you do... NOT. There isn't much OpenGL cannot do, that can't be done on pretty much any recent budget video card.

But that's not what M$ and the big Video Card vendors want you to believe. Is there some mutual benefit conspiracy happening here? "I make slow proprietary code that requires a super fast card... you make a super fast card to run my code"...

In the beginning...

2007-02-07T01:43:00.000-03:30

Back in the early 90's, a friend/co-worker introduced me to this new fangled thing called Linux.

Back then, it was distributed on 20-30 floppies, depending on what support you wanted to include. This was Slackware, and was pretty slick for the time.

My how things have evolved. Today, we have a multitude of Linux distributions, ranging from simple to down right complicated (at least for some).

Personally, I have used a variety of distributions ranging from Slackware, RedHat, Debian, Mandrake (Mandriva), Kubuntu and Gentoo.

My current liking is Gentoo, but I do not recommend it for the faint of heart. Instead, they should consider Kubuntu (my wife did and has not needed M$ since).