Into.the.Void.

I’ve decided to start a filter for adblock plus to filter out advertisements from Greek sites.

You can find more information on subscribing to the filter on the page: Greek adblock plus filter.

I started the list a long time ago with some personal filter for sites I visit the most. In order to enrich the list I searched and found a list with the supposedly “top 50” greek sites (regarding traffic), so I visited them and started adding filters to reduce the ads on them.

I warn you though, the filters are a bit strict…and I don’t like flash ads…I really don’t. I hope you like the list.

Please contact me, by email or by commenting on Greek adblock plus filter page to add your own custom filters to the list.

Filed by kargig at 23:46 under Internet
Tags: adblock, adblock plus, ads, filter, firefox, Internet, web
4 Comments | 17,092 views

With the recent addition of halevt in Gentoo’s portage it is now relatively easy to automatically mount media like USB sticks and CD/DVD discs on /media.

What I wanted to do was to emulate my previous set of configs and scripts that ivman used to create icons of automatically mounted media on ROX desktop (called pinboard). I am using ROX pinboard on top of my favorite window manager, fluxbox.

The idea is that halevt is started by the fluxbox startup config file and when a new device is attached to the computer, halevt config calls a script that creates an icon on the ROX pinboard using ROX rpc. When a device needs to be removed ROX pinboard is configured to call a special eject command that checks for a couple of things before unmounting the device and calling the script to remove the icon from ROX pinboard.
Apart from automatically mounting/unmounting of devices I have also added a nice option in the halevt config to unmount and eject the CD/DVD drive when the eject button on the device is used and of course when the CD/DVD is not in use. That emulates a bit the windows behavior that so many users have gotten used to.

Since the script used by halevt involves a lot of file reading/writing and parsing I thought it would be wise to convert my old rox.panelput bash script to perl. And I was correct, the speed difference, even for such simple tasks is more than noticeable.

The installation process. Please take notice of the user executing the commands, $ is for normal user, # is for root:
0) create /usr/local/bin/ path and put it in your shell’s PATH
# mkdir /usr/local/bin
$ echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin/" >> ~/.bashrc

1) install halevt
# echo "sys-apps/halevt ~x86" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
# emerge halevt

(more…)

Filed by kargig at 01:10 under Linux
Tags: automount, bash, desktop, Gentoo, halevt, icons, mount, perl, pinboard, portage, rox
16 Comments | 16,079 views

I’ve recently migrated on my debian from iceweasel (firefox) 3.0.X to swiftfox (firefox) 3.5b99 and I noticed that I could not import any new certificate authority root files. When I used a new profile everything worked as expected, so it was something that had to do with the migration of my old version 3.0.X profile to the new, version 3.5. It looks like there has been a modification in the way firefox 3.0.X and firefox 3.5 handles cert8.db file inside the profile directory. As soon as I deleted the file and restarted firefox I could import new certificate authority root files just fine. Of course I lost the old ones I had imported in the past…

Filed by kargig at 03:26 under Linux
Tags: bug, debian, firefox, Linux, migration, swiftfox
No Comments | 5,970 views

Όπου φτωχός και η μπύρα του…

Όπου φτωχός και η μπύρα του...

Από bar (Θυμωμένο Πορτραίτο) στα Ιωάννινα…

Filed by kargig at 21:05 under slogans
Tags: bar, slogan, Ιωάννινα, σύνθημα
1 Comment | 14,855 views

I’ve bumped into an Iceweasel + adblock plus bug: iceweasel: AdBlock Plus (1.0.2) custom element hiding filters does not work
It looks like Iceweasel from the stable branch of debian (version 3.0.6-1) has a problem hiding elements from websites. That makes some parts of adblock plus useless and ads start appearing on various websites.
What’s weird is that the problem only appears on Iceweasel and not on official Firefox (as the bug report says).

My options were to either a) switch to a testing/unstable version of Iceweasel from debian, b) get a binary package from firefox website or c) get another custom version. I chose method c) and I got swiftfox. Since Swiftfox provides a nice debian repo it was really easy to install and test. The whole experiment got even more interesting since swiftfox provides builds for firefox version 3.5…

After a update-alternatives --config x-www-browser I was ready to test it.
Swiftfox 3.5b4 works great with adblock plus and it even feels a bit faster. I can’t really tell for sure though. The only addon I had to reinstall was firegpg.

My impressions are great so far and I think I will keep it, at least until the bug mentioned gets resolved somehow on the stable branch.

Filed by kargig at 11:39 under Linux
Tags: adblock plus, browser, bug, debian, firefox, iceweasel, Linux, swiftfox
No Comments | 12,375 views

I’ve finally settled down to a solution that I am happy with. I used to have the following options inside my Xorg.conf:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
[...snip...]
Option "TapButton1" "1"
Option "TapButton2" "3"
Option "TapButton3" "2"
Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
[...snip...]


This works like this:
i) a single tap is a left click
ii) a two-finger tap is a right click
iii) a three-finger tap is a middle click
and you could scroll horizontally and vertically using two fingers on the touchpad, like Mac OS X.
The problem with this setup is that I used to have a lot of accidental double tappings while scrolling with two fingers horizontally or vertically. This of course produced unwanted right clicks.

I wanted a solution that I could get right click in somehow like Mac OS X does it, using ctrl+tap/ctrl+click. I found a solution that emulated ctrl+click as a right click but then many applications started misbehaving. Firefox for example uses ctrl+click on Linux to open a link on a new tab, when I used ctrl+click as a right click, Firefox stopped opening the links. So I went to plan B.

CMD key(apple key)-click as a right click.

To achieve that:
a) install xvkbd.
Debian: apt-get install xvkbd
Gentoo: emerge xvkbd
b) install xbindkeys.
Debian: apt-get install xbindkeys
Gentoo: emerge xbindkeys
c) create the default .xbindkeysrc file: xbindkeys –defaults > ~/.xbindkeysrc
d) edit it and put the following inside: "xvkbd -text '\m3'"
mod4 + b:1 (mouse)
e) edit xorg.conf and set this: Option "TapButton2" "0"
This effectively disables double tapping as a right click.
f) restart X
g) open a terminal and start xbindkeys from it: $ xbindkeys -n -v
Now press CMD key and tap the touchpad or click the touchpad button. You should be greeted with a fresh right click!

If all went well put xbindkeys in your DE’s autostart.

The following works flawlessly on XFCE/LXDE. CMD-click or CMD-tap opens XFCE’s menu or LXDE’s desktop menu.

On fluxbox though there is still a problem. It’s very common for fluxbox key config to look something like the following:
OnDesktop Mouse1 :hideMenus
OnDesktop Mouse2 :workspaceMenu
OnDesktop Mouse3 :rootMenu
OnDesktop Mouse4 :nextWorkspace
OnDesktop Mouse5 :prevWorkspace


So to open the RootMenu, which is the basic menu with the applications shortcuts for fluxbox, one needs to actually right click on the Desktop. That worked with TabButton2=3 but it does not work right now. To get around that problem I binded the key left to (1/!) which is normally the (±/§) key on Macs to the Menu key using xmodmap.
$ cat .xmodmap
keycode 94 = Menu

I never used that key anyway…

I’ve now got my precious right click back without accidental miss-clicks. yihaa!

References: FreeBSD on an Apple MacBook

Filed by kargig at 22:29 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: accidental, click, ctrl-click, ctrl+tap, debian, fluxbox, Gentoo, Linux, lxde, macbook, right-click, synaptic, toucpad, xfce
7 Comments | 34,270 views

To complement alex’s post upgrading Qt libraries in Gentoo with Portage, here’s what started it all. I wanted to upgrade my kpdf to the most recent version without upgrading world. So the output of emerge -1uDNavt kpdf looked like this:

[ebuild U ] kde-base/kpdf-3.5.10-r1 [3.5.9] USE="-debug (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" 6 kB [0]
[nomerge ] app-mobilephone/pysmssend-1.32 USE="qt4" [?]
[nomerge ] dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2 USE="X dbus opengl qt3support svg -debug -doc -examples -webkit" [0]
[ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.5.1 [4.4.2] USE="accessibility -custom-cxxflags% -debug -kde% -pch -phonon%" 111,980 kB [0]
[ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-sql-4.5.1 [4.4.2-r1] USE="iconv qt3support sqlite -custom-cxxflags -debug -firebird -mysql -odbc -pch -postgres" 0 kB [0]
[nomerge ] kde-base/kpdf-3.5.10-r1 [3.5.9] USE="-debug (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" [0]
[ebuild N ] virtual/poppler-qt3-0.10.5 0 kB [0]
[nomerge ] dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2 USE="X dbus opengl qt3support svg -debug -doc -examples -webkit" [0]
[ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1 [4.4.2-r3] USE="accessibility dbus glib gtkstyle%* qt3support -cups -custom-cxxflags -debug -mng -nas -nis -pch -raster% -tiff -xinerama" INPUT_DEVICES="(-wacom%)" 0 kB [0]
[ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-script-4.5.1 [4.4.2] USE="iconv%* -custom-cxxflags% -debug -pch" 0 kB [0]
[ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1 [4.4.2] USE="-custom-cxxflags -debug -pch" 0 kB [0]
[nomerge ] dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2 USE="X dbus opengl qt3support svg -debug -doc -examples -webkit" [0]
[nomerge ] x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2 USE="-debug -pch" [0]
[blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[nomerge ] sys-boot/unetbootin-319 [0]
[nomerge ] x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1 [4.4.2-r3] USE="accessibility dbus glib gtkstyle%* qt3support -cups -custom-cxxflags -debug -mng -nas -nis -pch -raster% -tiff -xinerama" INPUT_DEVICES="(-wacom%)" [0]
[blocks b ] x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2)
[blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-test-4.5.1 [4.4.2] USE="iconv%* -custom-cxxflags% -debug -pch" 0 kB [0]
[ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1 [4.4.2-r2] USE="glib iconv qt3support ssl -custom-cxxflags -debug -doc -pch" 0 kB [0]
[nomerge ] kde-base/kpdf-3.5.10-r1 [3.5.9] USE="-debug (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" [0]
[ebuild U ] kde-base/kdeprint-3.5.10 [3.5.9] USE="kdehiddenvisibility -cups -debug -kde (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" 0 kB [0]
[nomerge ] app-text/epdfview-0.1.6-r1 USE="-cups -nls -test" [0]
[nomerge ] virtual/poppler-glib-0.10.5 USE="cairo" [0]
[nomerge ] app-text/poppler-bindings-0.10.5-r1 USE="cairo gtk qt3 qt4 -test" [0]
[nomerge ] app-text/poppler-0.10.5-r1 USE="-doc" [0]
[ebuild U ] media-libs/openjpeg-1.3-r2 [1.3] USE="-tools" 0 kB [0]
[nomerge ] kde-base/kdeprint-3.5.10 [3.5.9] USE="kdehiddenvisibility -cups -debug -kde (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" [0]
[ebuild U ] app-text/enscript-1.6.4-r4 [1.6.4-r3] USE="-nls -ruby" 1,013 kB [?=>0]
[nomerge ] app-pda/msynctool-0.21 [0]
[nomerge ] app-pda/libopensync-0.21 USE="-debug -doc -python" [0]
[ebuild U ] dev-db/sqlite-3.6.13 [3.6.11] USE="threadsafe -debug -doc -soundex -tcl" 0 kB [0]
[blocks B ] x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[blocks B ] x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[blocks B ] x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2)
[blocks B ] x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)
[blocks B ] =x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge')
('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by
>=x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge')
x11-libs/qt-gui required by ('installed', '/', 'media-video/vlc-0.9.8a', 'nomerge')
x11-libs/qt-gui required by ('installed', '/', 'sys-boot/unetbootin-319', 'nomerge')
(and 4 more)
('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-test-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by
x11-libs/qt-test:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'app-text/poppler-bindings-0.10.5-r1', 'nomerge')
('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by
~x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.5.1[-debug] required by ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1', 'merge')
>=x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge')
('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2', 'nomerge') pulled in by
>=x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge')
('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by
~x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1[-debug] required by ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1', 'merge')
>=x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge')
('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2', 'nomerge') pulled in by
~x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2 required by ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2', 'nomerge')
x11-libs/qt-core required by ('installed', '/', 'media-video/vlc-0.9.8a', 'nomerge')
x11-libs/qt-core:4[qt3support] required by ('installed', '/', 'app-admin/keepassx-0.4.0', 'nomerge')
(and 7 more)
('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2', 'nomerge') pulled in by
>=x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge')
~x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2 required by ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3', 'nomerge')
('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2', 'nomerge') pulled in by
~x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2 required by ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3', 'nomerge')
>=x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge')
('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2', 'nomerge') pulled in by
x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'app-admin/keepassx-0.4.0', 'nomerge')
('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3', 'nomerge') pulled in by
>=x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge')
x11-libs/qt-gui required by ('installed', '/', 'media-video/vlc-0.9.8a', 'nomerge')
x11-libs/qt-gui required by ('installed', '/', 'sys-boot/unetbootin-319', 'nomerge')
(and 6 more)
('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by
~x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1[qt3support,-debug] required by ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-sql-4.5.1', 'merge')
x11-libs/qt-core:4[qt3support] required by ('installed', '/', 'app-admin/keepassx-0.4.0', 'nomerge')
~x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1[-debug] required by ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-script-4.5.1', 'merge')
(and 7 more)

The output is also at: http://dpaste.com/52703/
Unless you are a Gentoo Developer there is no easy way to understand the output.
So I joined #gentoo-el on Freenode to ask the greek gentoo developers (hwoarang, deathwing00, tampakrap, wired, yngwin), which happen to be on QT/KDE herds, to explain to me what’s wrong.
I was suggested to run an emerge -uDavt world to upgrade my whole system, but that’s not what I wanted and I asked for a solution that would not involve upgrading the whole system. The following is the output of emerge -uDNavt world:

http://pastebin.com/m8371430

Then they explained to me that there has been a change on QT eclass to provide protection to the system from having mixed QT versions. The problem is that the protection works by blocking the mix, but the output is at least “unfriendly”.

The solution, as alex said is to do: emerge -av1 `eix -I --only-names x11-libs/qt-`

Even though eix is a standard tool every gentoo user has probably installed, I don’t really like the solution because it depends on using another extra program, eix, and not pure portage techniques. Portage should be able, somehow, to handle these dependency problems and provide a custom error when such a problem occurs. The errors on “-9999” versions need vast improvement.

I hope Gentoo devs do something about improving portage even more 🙂

*EDIT*
After a small conversation with alex, I completely unmerged my x11-libs/qt-4.X package. As it seems it’s not needed at all any longer since all programs correctly reference the x11-libs/qt-NAME-4.X.

Filed by kargig at 21:35 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: blocks, eclass, Gentoo, kde, Linux, portage, qt
1 Comment | 11,443 views

Firefox has the feature of keeping links to downloaded files as urls using the file:// pattern. For example: file:///home/user/downloads/test.zip. If you choose ROX-Filer (/usr/bin/rox) to open these files you will get an error:

File doesn’t exist, or I can’t access it: file:///home/user/downloads/test.zip

One way to correct the error is to follow the instructions of http://lovingthepenguin.blogspot.com/2008/08/use-rox-filer-to-open-containing.html

Another way for Gentoo users, and much proper I guess, is to use /usr/bin/roxuri. roxuri is actually a shell script that uses the “-U” option for ROX:

-U, –url=URL open file or directory in URI form

For the non-Gentoo users, /usr/bin/roxuri is:
#!/bin/sh
exec "/usr/lib/rox/ROX-Filer/AppRun" -U "$@"

Create it and make it executable.

Go to Firefox Preferences/Applications/Content Type -> file and select /usr/bin/roxuri as the default application.

Now files from firefox downloads are handled correctly by rox which uses the proper applications to open them and containing folders open up with ROX-Filer. That means that while “file” is handled by roxuri, a .pdf will be opened by epdfview or whatever else you have chosen ROX to open pdf files with.

Both solutions work on ROX version 2.8.

Filed by kargig at 18:17 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: bug, file://, firefox, Gentoo, Linux, rox, tip
1 Comment | 6,931 views

Since yesterday halevt (HAL Events Manager) and its dependency, boolstuff library are in the official Gentoo portage!
halevt on Portage
boolstuff on Portage

They only thing it took was convincing hwoarang how much they were needed since ivman is pretty much borked. At first I asked him to add them to sunrise overlay but he insisted they go straight to portage.

The original ebuilds were taken from Gentoo bugzilla: new ebuilds for halevt and boolstuff -> supersedes ivman, they were refined a bit and then added to Portage. Thanks to Mike Gualtieri for the original ebuilds.

Hwoarang has added me as the proxy maintainer of these two packages. I hope that when updates go out, I’ll test them as soon as possible and then create new ebuilds for them.

The packages are currently only in ~x86 and ~amd64 (testing) branches. If you test the packages and think that they are stable enough please let me know and I’ll try to convince hwoarang to put them to x86 and amd64 (stable) branches.

Thanks again to hwoarang! Cheers!

Filed by kargig at 14:23 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: bug-report, bugzilla, Gentoo, halevt, ivman, overlay, portage, proxy-maintainer, stable, sunrise, testing
2 Comments | 6,863 views

I recently upgraded from a stable fluxbox release (1.0.0) to a development one (1.1.1), on gentoo x11-wm/fluxbox-1.1.1-r1, ~x86 branch . There have been some interesting changes. If you also upgrade you might find though that your “tabs” are not working.
Recent fluxbox versions (1.1.0+) have dumped the old “groups” file which used to contain applications that could be grouped in tabs. Now the grouped applications must be declared inside the “apps” file. The syntax is rather simple, if you want an application to have tab support just add a “[group]” line before it. For example if you had a groups file that combined urxvt, xterm and aterm tabs:
% cat ~/.fluxbox/groups
urxvt xterm aterm

The new proper syntax in apps file would be:
%cat ~/.fluxbox/apps
[group]
[app] (name=urxvt)
[app] (name=xterm)
[app] (name=aterm)
[end]

I wrote a perl script that can convert your old groups file to the new group format for apps file. fbox_groups_to_apps.pl

Bugs reports,fixes are more than welcome…

Filed by kargig at 21:07 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: convert, fluxbox, Gentoo, perl, script, tabs
1 Comment | 7,629 views

It’s been a while since ivman stopped working on my Gentoo box but I never had the time nor the willingness to take a look into it. It appears that ivman is incompatible with some newer versions of hal and dbus. The good thing is that there’s an alternative, it’s called halevt and as far as I’ve taken a look into it the configuration options look quite straightforward.
For Gentoo, there are ebuilds for halevt on Gentoo bugzilla, which install just fine.

In my point of view there’s an issue here for Gentoo. Latest ivman (sys-apps/ivman-0.6.14) compiles just fine against all of its dependencies, but then it does nothing at all when a deviced is plugged in. If the devices are present when ivman starts then it can detect and mount them, if you plug the devices after ivman is started, then ivman does nothing at all. I think ivman is broken since hal 0.5.9.X versions. Gentoo developers stll keep ivman in the stable tree though. I find no real logic to this decision. Ivman is buggy with current stable hal and dbus. I would prefer a de-stabilization of ivman or even a package mask for it. What’s the point in keeping a package (ivman) in the stable tree since it requires not the latest stable but an older version of another package (hal) ? IMHO, since they correctly decided to stabilize hal 0.5.11-r8, which subsequently rendered ivman useless, ivman should be wiped from the stable tree.
Some bugs on ivman reported on Gentoo Bugzilla: http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=ivman

I once used ivman with a couple of custom scripts to create/remove icons of automounted devices on my ROX desktop. I think I can make these scripts work again with halevt…I am in the process of rewriting them. More on that in the following days…

Filed by kargig at 01:06 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: automount, bug, bugzilla, Gentoo, hal, halevt, ivman, Linux, rox
7 Comments | 11,322 views

If you have an IMAP server based on Courier-IMAP and you get complains from people using the default Mail.app on Mac OS X about getting many warning messages and not being able to connect, the remedy is to increase the maximum allowed concurrent sessions per IP. They possibly have multiple accounts on the server and Mail.app is not able to handle each connection properly.
The cure is to open up /etc/courier-imap/imapd-ssl and /etc/courier-imap/imapd, find the MAXPERIP setting and change it to something like:
MAXPERIP=10

Don’t forget to restart your courier-imap server for changes to take effect.

By default the MAXPERIP setting is set to 4. On the imapd-ssl file it’s not even included in the config file (but still set to 4) so you need to add it yourself.

Filed by kargig at 12:20 under Linux,MacOSX
Tags: configs, courier, imap, Linux, MacOSX, mail, maxperip, ssl
No Comments | 9,375 views

comzeradd send me an e-mail about a mysql service not starting in a server we administer. I started taking a look around…nothing seemed suspicious.
I tried uninstalling and re-installing mysql-server-5.0 a few times and I always got this kind of output from apt-get:

Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.
Starting MySQL database server: mysqld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . failed!
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action “start” failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.0 (–configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
mysql-server-5.0
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states… Done
Reading task descriptions… Done

(more…)

Filed by kargig at 19:35 under Linux
Tags: bind-address, debian, init, Linux, loopback, mysql
2 Comments | 4,935 views

Μετά από ένα τρομερό Σαββατοκύριακο στη Λάρισα γυρίσα πάλι πίσω στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Το Fosscomm 2009 ήταν πάρα πολύ καλά οργανωμένο και τα παιδιά του Linux Team ΤΕΙ Λάρισας αξίζουν πολλά συγχαρητήρια για την προσπάθειά τους.

Τα παιδιά μας είχαν κλείσει ξενοδοχείο και ήταν πάρα πολύ ωραίο να μένουν 60+ άτομα που όλοι κουτσά στραβά γνωρίζονται στο ίδιο ξενοδοχείο. Θυμίζε πενταήμερη! Επίσης είχαν τυπώσει μπλουζάκια (πρόλαβα και πηρα ένα), κονκάρδες και διάφορα άλλα. Μιας και η συμμετοχή στο συνέδριο ήταν μεγάλη, θεωρώ πως μόνο το Σάββατο πρέπει να ήταν πάνω από 200 άτομα, θα είχε μεγάλο ενδιαφέρον να δούμε τις απαντήσεις στο ερωτηματολόγιο αξιολόγησης της εκδήλωσης που είχαν στο stand τους και όποιος ήθελε συμπλήρωνε.

Έξω από το επαρκέστατα εξοπλισμένο αμφιθέατρο, υπήρχαν stand με έντυπο υλικό καθώς και CD/DVD από διάφορες κοινότητες. Εκεί ήταν το Foss.Ntua, η ΕΕΛΛΑΚ, ο HELLUG, η ελληνική κοινότητα Fedora και η ελληνική κοινότητα Freebsd. Φυσικά παρόν ήταν και η ομάδα του Linux Team ΤΕΙ Λάρισας με το δικό της stand. Το κλίμα ήταν γενικώς πάρα πολύ καλό και συνάντησα πολλούς φίλους και γνωστούς που είχα μήνες να τους δω.

Θεωρώ πως οι παρουσιάσεις ήταν γενικά καλές, θα τολμήσω να πω πως ήταν ανώτερες από το επίπεδο του περσυνού Fosscomm που είχε γίνει στο Μετσόβειο, αλλά κυριώς ευχαριστήθηκα τα workshops που πέρυσι έλειπαν εντελώς. Συγχαρητήρια σε όσους κόπιασαν για να τα διοργανώσουν γιατί ένα καλό workshop είναι πολύ πιο δύσκολο από μια απλή παρουσίαση…Δυστυχώς και φέτος υπήρξαν κάποιες ακυρώσεις ομιλιών, ελπίζω του χρόνου τα πράγματα να κυλήσουν πιο ομαλά 🙂

Αν και δεν είδα όλες τις παρουσιάσεις γιατί προτίμησα να περάσω κάποιο παραπάνω χρόνο με φίλους και γνωστούς στους διαδρόμους, από όσα είδα έμεινα εντυπωσιασμένος από την δουλειά που έχει γίνει στη Σχολή Ικάρων από τον κύριο Αντώνιο Ανδρεάτο. Είμαι σίγουρος πως πολλοί καθηγητές των δικών μας πανεπιστημίων, ακόμα και από σχολές πληροφορικής, θα ντρεπόταν αν έβλεπαν τα βήματα προόδου σχετικά με τη χρήση και διάδωση ελεύθερου λογισμικού που έχουν κάνει στην Σχολή Ικάρων. Επίσης ευχαριστήθηκα πάρα πολύ την παρουσίαση του Android που έκανε ο Κώστας Πολυχρόνης. Με έψησε ακόμα περισσότερο να αποκτήσω το HTC Magic…με τσουρούφλησε θα έλεγα. Δεν θα μπορούσα να παραλείψω φυσικά το workshop και την παρουσίαση του Gentoo, που είναι και το αγαπημένο μου distribution, και έγινε από φίλους. Επίσης το Xen workshop, από την κοινότητα ανοιχτού λογισμικού του Πανεπιστημίου Πειραιά, με έβαλε και πάλι σε σκέψεις για να αρχίζω να πειραματίζομαι ξανά με το xen. Η κοινότητα αυτή μας είχε κανει πέρυσι (2007-2008) την τιμή να ανοίξουμε (εγώ και ο Fuzz) μια σειρά από εκδηλώσεις/παρουσιάσεις που ακολούθησαν και μάλιστα βράβευσαν το iloog ως το καλύτερο ελληνικό open source project για το 2008 στην περσινή DTE!

Είμαι επίσης πολύ χαρούμενος που αρκετός κόσμος με ρωτούσε τι γίνεται με το iloog και αν θα βγει ξανά καινούργια έκδοση. Μου έδωσαν ώθηση να συνεχίσω να ασχολούμαι μαζί του και υπόσχομαι να βγάλω μια έκδοση μέσα στους επόμενους μήνες. Ελπίζω φυσικά σε αυτό να βοηθήσουν και κάποιοι άλλοι …αν έχουν ακόμα όρεξη (στραβοκοιτάζω προς τον Fuzz και τον comzeradd αν δεν το έχουν ήδη καταλάβει)….

Το highlight του σαββατοκύριακου όμως ήταν η έξοδος μας το σάββατο το βράδυ. Τα παιδιά του ΤΕΙ Λάρισας ήρθαν και μας πήραν από το ξενοδοχείο και ένα τεράστιο τσούρμο 50+ ανθρώπων περπατούσαμε μέσα στην Λάρισα για να φτάσουμε τελικά σε ένα τσιπουράδικο. Εκεί οι φωτογραφίες, που θα αρχίσουν φαντάζομαι να δημοσιεύονται σε λίγες μέρες, θα μαρτυρύσουν το τι έγινε 😀

Τι μου άρεσε:
α) Η οργάνωση
β) Κάποιες παρουσιάσεις και κυρίως τα workshops
γ) Που είδα φίλους και γνωστούς

Τι δεν μου άρεσε:
α) Που φέτος ήρθαν λιγότεροι Αθηναίοι…
β) Που κάποιες παρουσιάσεις ακυρώθηκαν για λόγους που δεν ανακοινώθηκαν (δεν αναφέρομαι προφανώς σε εκείνους που τους έτυχε κάτι έκτακτο…)

Τι θα ήθελα για του χρόνου:
α) Αντί για 10 παρουσιάσεις κοινοτήτων θα προτιμούσα ένα session με εκπροσώπους από όλες τις κοινότητες σε ένα panel, όπου για 1h να μας παρουσιάσουν τα των μελών τους. Δεν χρειάζεται η κάθε κοινότητα να μας λέει πόσα μέλη έχει στο forum/mailing lists/etc σε ξεχωριστή παρουσίαση. Αυτό μπορεί να γίνει από όλους μαζί…
β) Περισσότερα projects από τις κοινότητες. Προσωπικά με ενδιαφέρει περισσότερο να δω ότι ένα άτομο από την τάδε κοινότητα ξεκίνησε κάτι και τον βοήθησαν οι υπόλοιποι παρά να βλέπω ότι 1500 καινούρια μέλη γράφτηκαν στο forum τους.
γ) Καλύτερη παρουσίαση όχι τόσο των events της κάθε κοινότητας αλλά περισσότερο του τρόπου με τον οποίο τα οργάνωσαν. Αυτό λείπει κυρίως, έλλειψη οργάνωσης και εκεί θέλουν βοήθεια οι περισσότερες κοινότητες (αλλά και οι σύλλογοι).
δ) Ακόμα περισσότερα workshops.

Το Linux Team ΤΕΙ Λάρισας ανέβασε πολύ ψηλά τον πήχη αλλά ελπίζω το επόμενο Fosscomm, το Fosscomm 2010, όπου και να γίνει, να είναι ακόμα καλύτερο!

Συγχαρητήρια και πάλι 🙂

Filed by kargig at 13:16 under Gentoo,Greek,Linux
Tags: Android, fosscomm, fosscomm 2009, Gentoo, Linux
4 Comments | 5,977 views

I was given root today in a gentoo box that nobody had upgraded since 2007. As expected the “emerge –sync; emerge -uDavt world” showed a lot of blockages.

I tried to solve each one but I got stuck while trying to upgrade portage 2.1.3.9 to 2.1.6.11. In order to upgrade portage I had to upgrade sandbox, but sandbox couldn’t be ugraded correctly due to portage 2.1.3.9 being unable to handle .tar.lzma files.
The box had sandbox-1.2 installed and it was unable to upgrade to sandbox-1.6. The error was:

unpack sandbox-1.6.tar.lzma: file format not recognized. Ignoring.

Upgrading lzma-utils, tar and a few other packages did not work. In the end I edited the sandbox-1.6-r2.ebuild and changed the src_unpack function from:
src_unpack() {
unpack ${A}
cd "${S}"
epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${P}-disable-qa-static.patch
epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${P}-disable-pthread.patch
epatch "${FILESDIR}"/0001-libsandbox-handle-more-at-functions.patch
}


To:
src_unpack() {
unpack ${A}
cd /var/tmp/portage/sys-apps/sandbox-1.6-r2/
tar --lzma -xvf sandbox-1.6.tar.lzma
mv sandbox-1.6/ work/
cd "${S}"
epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${P}-disable-qa-static.patch
epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${P}-disable-pthread.patch
epatch "${FILESDIR}"/0001-libsandbox-handle-more-at-functions.patch
}

Then:
cd /usr/portage/sys-apps/sandbox/; ebuild sandbox-1.6-r2.ebuild manifest

After this edit, sandbox emerged properly, so portage emerged properly too. Everything else worked as expected…

Filed by kargig at 12:13 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: Gentoo, Linux, lzma, portage, sandbox, upgrade
4 Comments | 9,621 views