Al Hoang

According to the Fedora FAQ one should be able to update with just this

sudo yum --enablerepo=updates-testing groupupdate "KDE (K Desktop Environment)"

However when I did, I ran into some icons from packages kdepim-3.5.9 and kdegraphics-4.1.0 conflicting with packages crystalsvg-icon-theme and libkipi. Here is a log…

  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/48x48/apps/kpalmdoc.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/kontact_contacts.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/kontact_date.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/kontact_journal.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/kontact_mail.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/kontact_news.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/kontact_notes.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/kontact_summary.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/kontact_summary_green.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/kontact_todo.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/64x64/actions/rss_tag.png from install of kdepim-3.5.9-10.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package crystalsvg-icon-theme-4.0.4-1.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/hicolor/16x16/apps/kipi.png from install of kdegraphics-4.1.0-3.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package libkipi-0.1.5-4.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/hicolor/22x22/apps/kipi.png from install of kdegraphics-4.1.0-3.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package libkipi-0.1.5-4.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/kipi.png from install of kdegraphics-4.1.0-3.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package libkipi-0.1.5-4.fc9.i386
  file /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps/kipi.png from install of kdegraphics-4.1.0-3.fc9.i386 conflicts with file from package libkipi-0.1.5-4.fc9.i386

Error Summary
-------------

I tried deleting these packages manually but that led into an even deeper’s rats nest of dependency hell. So one thing I tried was

$ sudo yum groupremove "KDE (K Desktop Environment)"
$ sudo yum --enablerepo=updates-testing groupinstall  "KDE (K Desktop Environment)"

However I still got conflcts so ran

$ sudo yum remove libkipi
$ sudo yum remove crystalsvg-icon-theme
$ sudo yum --enablerepo=updates-testing groupupdate  "KDE (K Desktop Environment)"

And finally I have got KDE 4.1.0 to install in way too many steps.

I love this quote

It’s obvious that GNU/Linux is a woman. She’s high maintenance, expects
everything to be given to her for free, and no matter what goes wrong…
it’s your fault.

Because the packaging certainly isn’t…

Ran into a problem with trying to partition up a disk on a running system. The idea is I wanted to create a new partition on a disk with partitions already mounted and use it without rebooting.

Here’s what you’ll mostly likely run into…

# sudo fdisk /dev/sda
... Steps for adding disk  elided ...

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table.
The new table will be used at the next reboot.
Syncing disks.

ahoang@jp-db-3:~$ sudo mke2fs -m 0 -j /dev/sda3
mke2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Could not stat /dev/sda3 --- No such file or directory

The device apparently does not exist; did you specify it correctly?

# ls -la /dev/sda*
/dev/sda   /dev/sda1  /dev/sda2

The simplest thing to do is just reboot and Linux will redetect everything on restart. However, sometimes you just can’t reboot. After Googling around it seems that partprobe does the job handily. Luckily this tool is already on an Ubuntu system so no need to apt-get install but it’s only a few keystrokes away.

Here’s the rest of the log once I ran partprobe and was humming along…

# sudo partprobe
# ls /dev/sda*
/dev/sda  /dev/sda1  /dev/sda2  /dev/sda3
# sudo mke2fs -m 0 -j /dev/sda3
mke2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
... Creating a file system output elided ...

On my workstation at work I’ve been running Ubuntu 8.04 to test out something I’ll post on later. However, one thing that was driving me nuts was that tidy was blowing up with a very unhelpful message like so:

/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/tidy/tidybuf.rb:39: [BUG] Segmentation fault

At first I thought it was some incompatibility with the gem installed version of tidy however after a bit more searching it seems tied with a specific bug in Debian that is logged here. Basically, the recent version of libtidy has some sort of instability that will blow up on certain types of HTML input. Kind of not useful I say…

Looks like this has been fixed in Debian unstable so this might be a perfect candidate to have merged into Ubuntu since this really sucks inheriting a package bug.

Read the Bug Report

The Gentoo Wiki to the rescue again. I’m sure you can find lots of other examples as well if you Google around.

I was experimenting with trying to play videos in the desktop background so I can work on other things while passively watching videos that I really didn’t want to spend 100% of my concentration on. However when I tried to use mplayers -rootwin option under Ubuntu it did not show anything.

After doing some Googling around, it seems that the problem is tied with how rich desktop environments like KDE and Gnome manage the ‘desktop’. They normally override the traditional X11 root window with their own which means that sending output to rootwin won’t show anything.

However, luckily there are ways around this. One post on the mplayer list mentioned ways to disable background handling by GNOME and KDE. However I could not get this working under Gnome. After some more Googling around I found that Lifehacker had a hint on how to enable screensavers in the background. So using that information it was rather simple. The recipe for Ubuntu is:

# Tell GNOME to not handle the desktop
$ gconftool-2 –type bool –set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop false
# Play a video file in the rootwin as fullscreen
$ mplayer -rootwin -fs my_cool_video.avi

One of the joys of living on the edge of Linux releases is the fun of dependency hell. At present, vmware server does not run on the latest released kernel 2.6.24. Which means if you NEED vmware server, you’re screwed. At least until the folks at vmware update vmware server to work with the latest kernel release.

• An Ubuntu Forum on the problem
• A vmware.com forum with more details

Hackzine has a blog post on using a SD card as swap space for the OLPC to handle the following situation:

Most of the time, the 256MB in the XO Laptop is sufficient. But I use yum to install software, and it can be very memory hungry. I often run out of RAM when installing more than a few packages at once

While the hack is definitely a good one to get around a system limitation in the OLPC, it is yet another reason I’m glad that the OLPC is not on my desk being fiddled with. For the others who are having fun with it, that’s great however I have gotten a little tired of dealing with trying to get Linux to behave like a system that I want it to be on resource-constrained systems.

I’ve had enough experience dealing with it on the Zaurus. In general you end up having to have a specialized toolchain / user environment in order to deal with things and this can be a fun challenge when you want to use ’standard’ system components to upgrade or install something since you’ll get into dependency hell.

Another issue with running outside the rails is the community can sometimes fall out from under you and you’re left with the choice of keeping your system at its current state with tweaking or rebuilding your system again.

I’ve been playing with KDE4 on my desktop at home. One of the things I have always liked about KDE is the myriad of options you can drown in while trying to configure something.

However, it seems that KDE4 at present is still not up to that task… ah well.

Live and learn, I guess.

This past Saturday I tried checking out the Second Life version of the November TLUG Meeting due to some previous obligations barring me from attending in person.

So I went through the rigmarole of installing Second Life on my Linux machine at home and getting it configured to work properly with these things called SLurls which seem to be some way to handle URLs that can send you directly to a location in Second Life.

This HOWTO was awfully handy in configuring Firefox. (You need to play with the about: URL) So now I’m all ready to listen in on the conversation and run into this bug

Basically, voice chat won’t work under Linux at this point in time. So I was basically having my avatar hang out in this room with some occasional text messages coming by with other people complaining about the sound. But I had zero sound… wonderful. I quickly disconnected since there are better things to do than watch a virtual presentation with virtually no sound. Bleh…

I’ve written before before on my battles with Linux and Core 2 Duos. After waiting a long time for Feisty to get closer to a release state I loaded up Feisty (after some initial install pains. The alternate install CD recognizes enough to install but the desktop version doesn’t and requires a USB CD-ROM or something)… I hit the final straw my efforts to get to my ORIGINAL plan months ago of working with virtualization on Linux.

$ sudo modprobe kvm-intel
FATAL: Error inserting kvm_intel (/lib/modules/2.6.20-14-generic/kernel/drivers/kvm/kvm-intel.ko): Operation not supported
$ dmesg | tail -n 2
[ 176.258182] kvm: disabled by bios
[ 1198.635777] kvm: disabled by bios

For the record I have:

1. A 2.6.20 based linux kernel that DEFINITELY supports kvm (Pending hardware)
2. Definitely a CPU that supports extensions
3. Enabled VT extensions in the BIOS

What the hell? I can only surmise it’s this stupid MSI-7265 motherboard that I’ve been trying to live with for the past X months. In my past post I read in a review it is a no-frills motherboard that is ‘lean and mean’. Well I’ve about had it with ‘lean and mean’. Give me a stupid motherboard that isn’t brain damaged in the BIOS. I’m going to start shopping for less sucktactular alternatives. If anyone has recommendations I’m more than happy to hear any.

Just wanted to let folks know that I’ve finally figured out how to get the build system in place for ruby-opengl to:

• Gemify itself
• Build native extensions during Gem installation using mkrf

Which means (I hope) that there should be an easier way to get OpenGL working with Ruby. Currently it should support installing in Linux and OS X. Installation should be as difficult as:

gem install -y ruby-opengl

Deinstallation should be similar.

For win32 users, I’d suggest using the old bindings provided with the all-in-one installer although I’d like to get a gem built for win32 so hopefully it can get included in the all-in-one installer.

References

• rb-opengl in Darwin.. err MacPorts
• An older way to get OpenGL in Ruby on OS X working

Eugenia of OSNews writes a nice lengthy review on the Nokia N800. It has many improvements compared to its predecessor. Some things they got right:

• Good Battery life (10-15 hrs standby, 3-5 hours in actual usage)
• Faster processor
• Great Wi-Fi reception
• Some support for VoIP (GoogleTalk, Gizmo?)
• Future Skype Support
• Opera Web Browser version handles Flash now
• Sure support for SD cards >1GB
• Reasonable price (~$400 USD)

However there are some flaws:

• They broke backwards compatibility with the previous N770 apps
• Flash can’t handle Google Videos or Youtube
• Craptastic MPEG-4 support

I have to say no Youtube and crappy MPEG-4 support for me is a dealbuster. There are a gazillion of these small devices that playback video however none of them play back ENOUGH video formats for me to be compelling. Although the N800 this time comes much closer. I guess I’ll wait for the N900 to roll about.

Other Reviews

There are other reviews floating on the net… here’s a list. I didn’t bother reading them as Eugenia’s was thorough enough to not require sifting through tons of probably useless fanboy lushing in order to find how it stacks up.

• Mobile Burn’s Review
• CNet’s Review
• ZDnet Review
• Gizmodo’s N800 News Feed

In an
earlier post
I wrote about the pains of Core 2 Duo motherboards and Linux support. Since September, there has been quite a bit of progress in the Linux community to support the JMicron SATA/PATA controller that is on the Intel P965 based motherboards. However, I’ve found that things are STILL not all rosy with my
MSI-7265 (aka the P965 Neo F model) motherboard. After looking around I found an interesting review on the MSI-7265 motherboard:
The Register Hardware writes:

The P965 Neo is a simple, no fuss but no frills motherboard with a decent layout

What this means is that the MSI-7265 does not offer very good access to many of the devices via the BIOS versus some other P965-based motherboards do such as the Asus P5B. After a bit of wrangling of my Gentoo installation I was able to get Linux installed, upgrade the kernel to 2.6.19-*mumble some Gentoo patch*, and boot properly.

What’s working

• The SATA AND the PATA controller on the jmicron chipset. (Allows using a DVD drive and the hard drive)
• Onboard Audio
• The onboard Realtek 8110SC-based ethernet port (requires getting a driver from the Realtek website)
• The USB ports

What’s NOT working

• Any of the Serial ATA ports off the ICH8 controller
• Suspend (It sleeps but never comes back up)

References

The Reg Hardware Review on the MSI 7265 Motherboard
Ubuntu Thread on MSI P965 Neo Install
An older Ubuntu thread on the MSI P965 Compatibility
Linux SATA Driver Status Page (Really useful!)
A Japanese post on trying to get the MSI P965 working (They failed)