Into.the.Void.

One of the things that good Linux applications should have is uniformity. Just like Mac OS X does. All applications should use the same keybindings to perform the same tasks. For example, on _every_ OS X application, in order to quit it you have to press “CMD+Q”, it’s that simple and everybody follows it. Everybody. On Linux though there are some applications that simply don’t care about uniformity. One of these applications is smplayer.

While it is almost standard for Linux applications to quit using Ctrl+Q, smplayer simply doesn’t have this option. It has the option of closing the current video with Ctrl+X but it doesn’t have the simple option of quitting using a keyboard shortcut.

So, the next (oneliner actually) patch does simply what I described above. It makes smplayer quit using “Ctrl+Q”.

The screenshot that shows what the patch does:

smplayer-0.6.8-quit.patch:
--- smplayer-0.6.8/src/baseguiplus.cpp 2009-08-13 16:07:04.000000000 +0300
+++ smplayer-0.6.8/src/baseguiplus.cpp 2009-08-13 16:08:22.000000000 +0300
@@ -67,8 +67,7 @@
tray->setToolTip( "SMPlayer" );
connect( tray, SIGNAL(activated(QSystemTrayIcon::ActivationReason)),
this, SLOT(trayIconActivated(QSystemTrayIcon::ActivationReason)));
-
- quitAct = new MyAction(this, "quit");
+ quitAct = new MyAction(QKeySequence("Ctrl+Q"), this, "quit");
connect( quitAct, SIGNAL(triggered()), this, SLOT(quit()) );
openMenu->addAction(quitAct);

And a patched ebuild for smplayer-0.6.8 to use this minor patch (only one line is added to the ebuild):
smplayer-0.6.8-r1.ebuild

P.S. Keybindings in smplayer can be set through Preferences, and someone could actually put Ctrl+Q as the quit shortcut but I think that this should be the default setting like most other applications have it. Uniformity matters.

Filed by kargig at 16:19 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: bug, bugfix, ebuild, Gentoo, Linux, Mac, MacOSX, media player, patch, smplayer
5 Comments | 10,880 views

The following configs can be used when you have either Vodafone Mobile Internet or Cosmote Internet on the Go or both 3G USB sticks and you want to connect to the 3G Internet (in Greece) while using Linux. I’ll provide two ways to connect to 3G, the command line way using wvdial and the GUI way using umtsmon.

1) Using wvdial
Create /etc/wvdial.conf:

[Dialer Defaults]
New PPPD = yes
Dial Command = ATDT
Dial Attempts = 1
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
ISDN = 0
#commented out see the comments on the post.
#Baud = 460800
Username = user
Password = pass
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = AT&F E1 V1 X1 &D2 &C1 S
[Dialer cosmote]
Phone = *99#
Stupid Mode = 1
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","internet"
[Dialer vodafone]
Phone = *99#
Stupid Mode = 1
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","internet"
[Dialer vfPIN]
Init4 = AT+CPIN=1234
[Dialer cmPIN]
Init4 = AT+CPIN=5678

WARNING: You HAVE to change the PINs on the last part of the config

To connect to Cosmote, plug in the usb stick:

# wvdial cmPIN
# wvdial cosmote

To connect to Vodafone, plug in the usb stick:

# wvdial vfPIN
# wvdial vodafone

2) Using umtsmon
Connection->Manage Profiles and create the necessary profiles with settings that look like these:

Username and Password does not really matter. Enter something like User/Pass or Username/Password.

Both versions tested on Debian and Gentoo and they are working just fine.

If someone has the Wind ADSM settings please provide them as a comment so I can complete the post with all three Greek 3G providers.

References: List of AT commands

Filed by kargig at 21:38 under Gentoo,Internet,Linux
Tags: 3G, cosmote, debian, Gentoo, Internet, Linux, umtsmon, vodafone, wvdial
8 Comments | 24,588 views

I’ve uploaded an ebuild for the latest version of nicotine+ on gentoo’s bugzilla. Nicotine+ is a great p2p app written in PyGtK2 to connect to the Soulseek network.

I’ve also added psyco as a USE flag since it makes nicotine+ faster…but sadly, a bit more unstable as well. Test it and see if it makes any difference to you.

Ebuild: nicotine+-1.2.12.ebuild

Filed by kargig at 10:03 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: ebuild, Gentoo, gtk, nicotine, p2p, python, soulseek
No Comments | 5,650 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 | 34,269 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 | 11,442 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 | 11,321 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 | 5,976 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 | 9,620 views

The Task
Last year, me and comzeradd set up a Gentoo server for HELLUG according to our plot to help Gentoo conquer the world. Unfortunately Gentoo is out of HELLUG’s administration policy, all servers must be Debian. We didn’t know that, so after a small flame :), we decided that we should take back the server to somebody’s home and re-install Debian over it, the problem was that the server was located at University of Athens campus which is a bit far from downtown Athens where comzeradd lives. I also live 500km away so we were pretty much stuck. Months passed and nobody actually had enough free time to go to UOA‘s campus and take the server to their house. …In the meantime manji joined us as an extra root for the server.

One Saturday night while chatting at IRC (what else could we be doing on saturday night ??) we had an inspiration, why not install Debian remotely, without taking the server home. Even if everything got eventually borked it couldn’t get any worse than going there, taking the server home and fixing it, just like we would do any way. So we gathered on a new IRC channel with some more friends that are really good with Debian and started the conversion progress.

The Server
The interesting part about the server was that it had 2x250Gb IDE disks. The Gentoo setup had these disks partitioned to 4 software raid devices + swap partitions.
(more…)

Filed by kargig at 20:21 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: debian, debootstrap, Gentoo, grub, HOWTO, mdadm, no psysical access, raid, raid0, raid1, remote install
11 Comments | 21,043 views

I’ve written a small perl script to parse random entries from the extremely usefull commandlinefu.com website. Quoting from their site:

Command-Line-Fu is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again.

The script code is very “clean”. I can almost say that it’s written in a very python-ish way.
Sample output:%./cfu.pl
CMD: for (( i = 0; i < 100; i++ )); do echo "$i"; done
URL=http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/735/perform-a-c-style-loop-in-bash. Title=Perform a C-style loop in Bash.
Description: Print 0 through 99, each on a separate line.
%./cfu.pl
CMD: rsync -av -e ssh user@host:/path/to/file.txt .
URL=http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/20/synchronise-a-file-from-a-remote-server Title=Synchronise a file from a remote server
Description: You will be prompted for a password unless you have your public keys set-up.

You can get it from here: commandlinefu.com random entry parser perl script

As far as I’ve tested, it works out of the box on default perl installations of Debian, Gentoo and Mac OS X.

Filed by kargig at 01:28 under Gentoo,Internet,Linux,MacOSX
Tags: commandlinefu, debian, Gentoo, MacOSX, oneliner, parse, perl, script
3 Comments | 11,679 views

I am writing this post to provide some statistics on athcool + sata_sil usage. The results are horrible.

Athcool is a small utility, enabling/disabling Powersaving mode for AMD Athlon/Duron processors.
The homepage of the utility has a big fat warning as well:

WARNING: Depending on your motherboard and/or hardware components, enabling powersaving mode may cause:

* noisy or distorted sound playback
* a slowdown in harddisk performance
* system locks or instability

The Gentoo ebuild also has these warnings:

ewarn “WARNING: Depending on your motherboard and/or hardware components,”
ewarn “enabling powersaving mode may cause:”
ewarn ” * noisy or distorted sound playback”
ewarn ” * a slowdown in harddisk performance”
ewarn ” * system locks or unpredictable behavior”
ewarn ” * file system corruption”
ewarn “If you met those problems, you should not use athcool. Please use”
ewarn “athcool AT YOUR OWN RISK!”

Ignoring all these warning I was using athcool for years on my old desktop box filled with 2 IDE disks. Never had any real problem at all, except for a some performance loss. The problem appeared when I first used a sata disk on motherboard’s, Gigabyte GA-7VAXP-A Ulta, sata controller which uses the sata_sil module.
(more…)

Filed by kargig at 10:47 under Gentoo,Linux
Tags: athcool, bug, bug-report, bugzilla, dd, ext3, Gentoo, IDE, Linux, performance, powesaving, sata, sata_sil, vmstat
No Comments | 8,942 views

As some people already know I’ve joined the army since 2 months ago, this makes it somewhat difficult for me to keep up with the latest updates for every machine I use.
Today I tried to upgrade a machine running stable (x86) Gentoo Linux after more than 15 days since the last upgrade and I got confronted with an epic Gentoo failure. The problem is clearly described on Odi’s blog. While trying to update e2fsprogs you have to uninstall the old version of them (so far so good), remove sys-libs/ss (that’s also acceptable) and remove sys-libs/com_err which is a dependency for MANY MANY progs, wget among them. So when you remove all these packages and try to install e2fsprogs-libs, wget can’t work anymore due to the missing libcom_err.so.2 file, so you can’t download the updates! You can’t open a new ssh connection to the machine either, so you can’t sftp the libcom_err.so.2 file from another machine! I had success by placing libcom_err.so.2 on a nfs share in another machine, mounting that share from the first machine and trying to re-emerge e2fsprogs-libs since wget could then work.

You can read more about the bug on Gentoo’s bugzilla, here and here.

a) Since portage is NOT ready to handle these kind of situations (according to bugzilla) why did the maintainers mark e2fsprogs-libs as stable ? Why didn’t they do ANY testing at all on the stable branch ?
b) Why wasn’t there a warning/alert/whatever on Gentoo’s website ?
c) It’s been more than 10 days since the problem first appeared and there hasn’t been any official solution about it, either by portage upgrade or by package masking.
d) Should I have googled or searched the forums before upgrading ? Possibly yes…but Gentoo didn’t have such upgrade problems before. I could accept it if problems on Gentoo were created by an upstream ABI breakage like dev-libs/expat had not so long ago, but this looks to me as a totally Gentoo related problem and not an upstream one.

I award Gentoo and e2fsprogs-libs maintainers a sad trombone. Sorry people but this is an epic failure. You deserve it.

Filed by kargig at 17:23 under Gentoo,Linux
16 Comments | 8,178 views