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the avatar of Aleksa Sarai

a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

Configuring a Brother MFC-7460DN Laser Printer/Scanner on Fedora 23 (64-bit)

Update: the MFC-7460DN printer is now supported via the brlaser open source printer driver by Peter De Wachter. See this post for a much simpler way to configure this printer on Fedora (and other Linux distributions).

I’ve always been a fan of Brother, as their devices usually come with decent support for the Linux OS (at least initially). I have an MFC-7460DN Laser Printer / Scanner in my home office, that worked fine with Ubuntu Linux for the past few years. It’s hooked up to my DSL router’s ethernet switch and acts like a network printer for all of our devices.

Just to keep my mind flexible and to take a look at another Linux distribution for a change, I recently started using Fedora Workstation 23 on my Laptop (a company-issued Lenovo ThinkPad T440s). While the OS installation was painless and all main components like Video, Audio, Networking were detected and configured correctly out of the box, the post-installation of some tools and services required some more effort.

This time, the printing part of the MFC-7460DN took me quite some time to figure out. While Brother provides RPM packages of the drivers, they are 32-bit only, and the instructions hadn’t been updated since Fedora 12. The first thing I had to do was to download two driver RPM packages. I initially started with the newer versions of the drivers, brgenml1cupswrapper-3.1.0 and brgenml1lpr-3.1.0, but somehow did not get them to work at all. I then tried the older packages, mfc7460dnlpr-2.1.0 and cupswrapperMFC7460DN-2.0.4. These installed flawlessly, and a new printer was added to the CUPS configuration automatically.

However, it was configured as a local printer, so I first had to change the existing configuration to talk to the remote LPD port instead. While the printer configuration looked correct and no errors showed up, all print jobs simply disappeared into the bit bucket, without any visible error on the application side. Unfortunately the web-based CUPS administration tool was not much helpful, either – the button View Error Log simply returned a “Not found” error. There was no error log file in /var/log/cups, so I queried the status of the CUPS service via systemd next.

The command systemctl status -l cups then gave me a first hint:

sh: /opt/brother/Printers/BrGenML1//lpd/rawtobr3: /lib/ld-linux.so.2: bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory

Since this is a 32-bit binary, it might help to actually install a 32-bit version of the GNU C library! I simply forgot this step, even though it’s documented in the installation instructions. A simple dnf install glibc.i686 got me over this hurdle.

Unfortunately the print jobs still did not reach the printer and disappeared in the void! Checking the CUPS error log again, I now saw this:

/usr/local/Brother/Printer/MFC7460DN/lpd/filterMFC7460DN: line 131: 11660 Done                    eval cat $INPUT_TEMP
11661 Broken pipe             | $PSCONV $PSCONV_OP
11662 Segmentation fault      | $BRCONV $BRCONV_OP
PID 11602 (/usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperMFC7460DN) exited with no errors.
PID 11603 (/usr/lib/cups/backend/lpd) exited with no errors.

Hilarious. Oh well, maybe the 32-bit binary is simply too old and crashes in the new environment? Let’s take a look at the full systemd journal with journalctl! This gave me further clues:

cupsd[10951]: /usr/local/Brother/Printer/MFC7460DN/lpd/filterMFC7460DN: line 131: 11660 Done                    eval cat $INPUT_TEMP
cupsd[10951]: 11661 Broken pipe             | $PSCONV $PSCONV_OP
cupsd[10951]: 11662 Segmentation fault      | $BRCONV $BRCONV_OP
cupsd[10951]: PID 11602 (/usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperMFC7460DN) exited with no errors.
cupsd[10951]: PID 11603 (/usr/lib/cups/backend/lpd) exited with no errors.
cupsd[10951]: time-at-completed=1449759139
cupsd[10951]: Job completed.
cupsd[10951]: Removing document files.
dbus[1190]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.fedoraproject.Setroubleshootd'
setroubleshoot[11624]: SELinux is preventing brprintconflsr3 from using the execmem access on a process. For complete SELinux messages. run sealert -l 5d873063-1d87-4e82-b
python3[11624]: SELinux is preventing brprintconflsr3 from using the execmem access on a process.
                                                
                                *****  Plugin catchall_boolean (89.3 confidence) suggests   ******************
                           
                                If you want to allow cups to execmem
                                Then you must tell SELinux about this by enabling the 'cups_execmem' boolean.
                                                
                                Do
                                setsebool -P cups_execmem 1
                                                
                                *****  Plugin catchall (11.6 confidence) suggests   **************************
                                                
                                If you believe that brprintconflsr3 should be allowed execmem access on processes labeled cupsd_t by default.
                                Then you should report this as a bug.
                                You can generate a local policy module to allow this access.
                                Do
                                allow this access for now by executing:
                                # grep brprintconflsr3 /var/log/audit/audit.log | audit2allow -M mypol
                                # semodule -i mypol.pp

OK, so SELinux seems to be getting in the way here. I did as suggested and ran the following commands:

# setsebool -P cups_execmem 1
# grep brprintconflsr3 /var/log/audit/audit.log | audit2allow -M brothermfc7460dn
# semodule -i brothermfc7460dn.pp

An lo and behold, the printer started printing! Let’s hope it still does when I reboot the system…

Things I learned and that surprised me:

  • The error handling in CUPS completely failed here. There was not a single end-user accessible hint that something went wrong, the print jobs just disappeared in the void.
  • The move to systemd still has some ripple effects, e.g. the “Not found” error for the missing CUPS error log in the web UI.
  • Analyzing log files with journalctl is actually quite convenient. Instead of grepping and tailing multiple logs under /var/log/, these tasks can now be performed using a single tool.
  • SELinux is still a bitch, even though the hints provided by setroubleshootd were quite useful to resolve the issues at hand.
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

New Cantarell Maintainer

GNOME's default UI typeface Cantarell gained a new maintainer, Nikolaus Waxweiler. Nikolaus was on a holy crusade to improve the state of text rendering on Linux by improving FreeType and lobbying for changes in different projects. While he continues on those efforts, bug reports hinted (pun intended) that GNOME's font rendered worse as FreeType improved so he went on to investigate why. It turns out that Cantarell had many metric related issues and its development was quite stagnant.

Cantarell with properly defined Blue Zones

The process of making fonts look good even on our crappy LoDPI screens is commonly called hinting and it requires precision. Cantarell ships as an .otf font or OpenType font with Postscript-flavor. Hinting .otf fonts works differently from hinting common TrueType or .ttf fonts. You define several horizontal snapping zones, also called blue zones, like descender, x-height, capital height, ascender height, etc. so that they match your design. That means that the outlines you are designing must as a general rule be placed precisely within these blue zones or the hinting algorithm will ignore them. Blue zones must be constructed to contain everything they should contain. The idea is that a well designed typeface is consistent and regular enough that coarse blue zones describe the design well. The hinting algorithm of the font design application will then place stem information according to those blue zones, among other considerations. For a final rendering, glyphs are snapped to those horizontal blue zones, meaning they are only snapped on the Y-axis. Think ClearType.

Cantarell was full of off-by-ones-or-twos and technical don't-do-thats, diacritics were inconsistent and Cyrillics still need a look-over. The bold face was in an even poorer state. Back in June 2013 Adobe's contributed a new high-quality OpenType/Postscript-flavor hinting engine. The problems were only magnified because the new engine actually takes hinting information seriously and will spit out garbage when the font designer isn't careful.

Nikolaus has cleaned up the fonts considerably by fixing the blue zones, outline precision to fall within them and numerous other problems. You might also notice that letters like bdfklh are a bit taller for a more harmonious look. It should display consistently at all sizes now.

Oh, by the way: FreeType 2.6.2 brings more user-visible changes. If you are on a rolling-release distribution, you might have noticed them already. If you wish to read up more on those changes, Nikolaus wrote a lengthy article about the changes and future plans on freetype.org.

For a Cantarell 0.1.0 release we plan to have all accented glyphs fixed. Nikolaus has finished a first pass at diacritics and is now looking for testers. Anyone who deals with diacritics in his/her language, especially central European people, please get the .otf fonts from the git repo and report bugs to the GNOME bug tracker.

Do note that Nikolaus didn't just dive into maintainership, but wrote most of this post. My incentives to get him set up a blog and post on Planet GNOME have been fruitless so far.

a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

關於 plasma 5 系統匣的一些問題

1. 某些特定的 icon 會消失不見留下空白

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2015-12/msg00029.html

請換個主題試試看



2. 設定隱藏/顯示圖示失效

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/511643-System-Tray-in-Plasma5-doesn-t-allow-to-hide-or-show-icons

修改

/usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.systemtray/contents/ui/ConfigEntries.qml

97行左右

(index) {

改成

(currentIndex) {



3. 太多 xembedsniproxy 


從 

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Frameworks5/openSUSE_Leap_42.1/x86_64/

下載新的 xembed-sni-proxy 



4. fcitx 會導致 xembedsniproxy 無法啟動

a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

KDE Plasma 5.5 veröffentlicht

Heute hat das KDE Team ein neue Version des Plasma Desktops veröffentlicht. Plasma hat nun Version 5.5 erreicht und einige neue Features bekommen.

Neue Features in Plasma 5.5

Für mich ist das Update von Plasmas Breeze-Theme eine der interessantesten und wichtigsten Neuerungen. Die Überarbeitung bringt nicht nur eine Verbesserung der vorhandenen Icons und einige neue Icons zusätzlich, sondern auch Versionen des Breeze-Themes für das GTK+2 und GTK+3 Toolkit. Auf diese Weise sehen nun GTK-basi...

a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

KDE Plasma 5.5 released

Today the KDE team released a new version of it's desktop environment Plasma. It has now reached version 5.5 with a few nice new features.

New features in Plasma 5.5

For me the most important and most visible new feature is the update of Plasma's theme Breeze. This overhaul does not only mean that existing icons have been updated and improved and a few new icons have been added, but Breeze has been released for the GTK+2 and GTK+3 toolkits as well. This way GTK-based applications are now lo...

a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

How to run Rails with PostgreSQL on openSUSE Leap 42.1

I wrote about how to run Rails with PostgreSQL on openSUSE 12.3 before. Things have changed since then. While Rails, PostgreSQL, and openSUSE are still excellent choices, new versions have been released. This warrants an update. So here is how to get a development environment of Rails with PostgreSQL running on the latest and greatest openSUSE Leap 42.1.

Install PostgreSQL:

    sudo zypper install postgresql-server postgresql-devel

Start the database server:

    sudo systemctl start postgresql

Enable server to be started on boot:

    sudo systemctl enable postgresql

Switch to the postgres user to set up the database:

    sudo su -l postgres

Create database user:

   createuser -d USERNAME

Return to your normal user, exchange the database driver in the Gemfile from sqlite3 to pg and run

   bundle install

Change the configuration of the database driver to something like:
  default: &default
    adapter: postgresql
    username: cs

  development:
    <<: *default
    database: APPNAME_development

  test:
    <<: *default
    database: APPNAME_test

  production:
    <<: *default
    database: APPNAME_production
Create the databases:

    rake db:create
    rake db:migrate
    rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=test

That's it.

the avatar of Bruno Friedmann
the avatar of Bruno Friedmann

Proprietary AMD/ATI Catalyst fglrx rpms new release 15.11 (15.300.1025-1)

Time to get an update for fglrx: the new release has been build for 13.1, 13.2, Leap 42.1, and tumbleweed 20151201

Tumbleweed beware : broken Xorg

It seems since the release, that a number of report of broken xorg with gdm, ssdm and so… segfaulting

You can still use the previous version hanging on the server. But I doubt it would work better

As soon, with Sebastian Siebert we have a patch for, I will republish a new build

Informations & bugreport Sebastian’s blog or lizards.o.o

The proposed drivers support kernel up to version 4.4

AMD release note available

Sebastien Siebert making script

Sebastian Siebert posts about fglrx

If you have any problems with the driver, don’t be afraid to report to Sebastian (German and English bugreports are gladly accepted).
he will try, as far as I am able to reproduce the bug. Together with the necessary system information, he will go directly to the right place at AMD to have the bug fixed in the next driver release.
Thank you very much, Sebastian.

See below what to do in case of troubles.

Or you can also ping him on irc (freespacer)

Debugging troubles

I recommend in case of trouble the use of his script which can collect the whole informations needed to help you. then you just have to issue a simple commande in console to collect all informations, you can review them, and finally transmit them.
Check the website to get the latest. 

su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.11.sh -ur'
The system report 'amd-report.txt' was generated.                                                                                                          [ OK ]
Do you want to read the system report 'amd-report.txt' now? yes/no [y/n]: y
Are you sure to upload the above-named system report to sprunge.us? yes/no [y/n]: y

The report was uploaded to sprunge.us.
   The link is:  http://sprunge.us/eMEB

Copy paste the link in the comment zone of Sebastian post

All proudly distributed by openSUSE powered server and sponsored by Ioda-Net Sàrl

a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar
a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar

openSUSE – proprietären Grafik-Treiber AMD Catalyst 15.11 als RPM installieren

AMD Catalyst 15.11 (fglrx 15.30.1025) (Radeon Crimson Edition) wurde veröffentlicht und unterstützt Grafikkarten ab Radeon HD 5000 und höher. Das Skript makerpm-amd-15.11.sh steht ab sofort zum Download zur Verfügung und unterstützt openSUSE 11.4, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 13.1, 13.2, 42.1 und Tumbleweed sowie bis Kernel 4.4 (offiziell nur bis Kernel 3.19).

Ich habe den AMD Treiber für den kommenden Kernel 4.4 angepasst. Zur Zeit läuft der AMD Treiber mit Kernel 4.4-rc3 einwandfrei. Leider funktioniert der GNOME Desktopmanager nach wie vor nicht. Als Workaround sei ein alternativer Desktopmanager z.B. lightdm zu empfehlen.

[UPDATE 07.12.2015]
Anscheinend ist die Release Notes zur Radeon Crimson Edition nicht vollständig gewesen. Es gibt eine gute und leider auch eine schlechte Nachricht. AMD hat die Unterstützung einiger noch recht aktuelle Grafikkarten aus dem aktuellen Treiber gestrichen. Offenbar nicht alle genannten Grafikkarten, was wiederum zu einem bedauerlichen Glücksspiel wird.

Es betrifft folgende Grafikkarten:

  • Radeon HD 5000 Serie
  • Radeon HD 6000 Serie
  • Radeon HD 7000 – 7600 Serie
  • Radeon HD 8000 – 8400 Serie

Wer noch eine Grafikkarte dieser Sorte hat, sollte besser bei AMD Catalyst 15.9 bleiben oder auf den vom Kernel mitgelieferten Radeon Treiber umsteigen.

AMD arbeitet zur Zeit mit höherer Priorität am freien AMD Treiber amdgpu. Einsehbar in den Git-Repositorien Kernel-Entwicklungszweig und PowerPlay-Entwicklungszweig. Im Gegensatz zum Radeon-Treiber sollte die Performance, das Powermanagement sowie der Re-Clocking Support via PowerPlay-Patch besser mit amdgpu funktionieren und wird im Kernel 4.5 voraussichtlich im nächsten Jahr Februar/März 2016 integriert sein.

Quelle: AMD Radeon™ Software Support for Legacy Graphics Products
Quelle: AMDGPU With PowerPlay Compared To AMD’s Catalyst Linux Driver
Quelle: AMD Publishes AMDGPU PowerPlay Support For Re-Clocking / Power Management
[/UPDATE 07.12.2015]

Gelöste Probleme:

  • [SWDEV-55204] Stuttering when running glxgears with VSync enabled
  • [SWDEV-7339] Intermittent mouse cursor corruption

Link: AMD Catalyst 15.11 Release Notes

Folgende Steam-Spiele habe ich getestet und laufen mit diesem Treiber (Fettdruck = Neu):

Eine kleine Bitte habe ich: Wenn irgendwelche Probleme mit dem Treiber auftauchen, scheut euch nicht mir zu berichten (Ich nehme deutsche und englische Bugreports gerne entgegen). ;-) Ich werde versuchen, soweit es mir möglich ist, den gemeldeten Fehler zu reproduzieren. Zusammen mit den nötigen System-Informationen werde ich mich direkt an die richtige Stelle bei AMD wenden, um den Bug in der nächsten Treiber-Version beheben zu lassen. Danke schön. :-D

Für Benutzer älterer AMD Grafikkarten (Radeon HD Serie 2000 – 4000) wird dringend die Installation dieses Treibers abgeraten. openSUSE bringt bereits für ältere Grafikkarten den freien Radeon-Treiber mit. Um regelmäßig Verbesserungen am freien Radeon-Treiber zu erhalten, ist die Installation eines neuen Kernel unumgänglich.

Downloads:

Installationsanleitung:
http://de.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD/ATI-Grafiktreiber#Installation_via_makerpm-amd-Skript

Installation guide (English):
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMD_fglrx#Building_the_rpm_yourself

Über das makerpm-amd-Skript

Das Skript makerpm-amd-15.11.sh ist sehr mächtig, robust und läuft vollautomatisch. Der AMD-Installer wird automatisch heruntergeladen, falls er nicht schon im Verzeichnis liegt. Zudem wird geprüft, ob die Grafikkarte vom Treiber unterstützt wird. Auf Wunsch wird nach dem Bau des RPM-Packages der fglrx-Treiber installiert.

Folgende Argumente können dem Skript übergeben werden:

-b Nur das RPM-Package bauen (Standard)
-c <type> Nur X-Server konfigurieren. Monitor-Typ: single = 1 Monitor, dual = 2 Monitore (Wichtig: Nur ausführen, wenn es Probleme mit der Standardkonfiguration des X-Servers auftreten)
-d Nur den AMD-Installer downloaden
-i Das RPM-Package bauen und installieren bzw. updaten
-igf/–install-gdm-fix installiert einen Fix, um den Treiber mit dem GNOME Desktopmanager (gdm) läuffähig zu machen
-kms <yes|no> Kernel-Mode-Setting (KMS) aktivieren oder deaktivieren
-nohw Hardware-Erkennung explizit ausschalten. (z.B. beim Bau in einer VM)
-old2ddriver <yes|no> den alten 2D-Treiber aktivieren oder deaktivieren
-r|–report erstellt ein Report und speichert diese in eine Datei namens amd-report.txt
-u|–uninstall entfernt AMD Catalyst restlos vom System. Zuerst wird das fglrx-Package (falls vorhanden) vom System deinstalliert. Danach werden vorhandene AMD-Dateien und -Verzeichnisse entfernt. Hinweis: Falls das Rebuild-Skript installiert wurde, wird es ebenfalls entfernt und das Initskript /etc/init.d/xdm wiederhergestellt.
-ugf/–uninstall-gdm-fix entfernt den Fix, dass den Treiber mit dem GNOME Desktopmanager (gdm) läuffähig macht
-ur|–uploadreport wie Option –report nur zusätzlich wird der Report auf einem NoPaste-Service sprunge.us hochgeladen und gibt bei Erfolg den Link zurück.
-h Die Hilfe anzeigen lassen
-V Version des Skript anzeigen

Hilfe, es funktioniert nicht!

Bitte haltet folgende Regel ein:

  1. Bei der Eingabe der Befehle auf mögliche Tippfehler überprüfen.
  2. Möglicherweise ist die Lösung für das Problem im Wiki vorhanden.
  3. In Kommentaren lesen, ob eine Lösung zu einem Problem bereits existiert.

Wenn keines der o.g. Regel greift, dann könnt ihr mit eurem Anliegen an mich wenden. Damit ich euch helfen kann, müsst ihr erst vorarbeiten. Bitte ladet euch das Skript makerpm-amd-15.11.sh herunter und erstellt einen Report von eurem System in der Konsole:

su -c 'sh makerpm-amd-15.11.sh -ur'

Das Skript lädt das Report auf sprunge.us hoch und gibt anschließend einen Link aus. Diesen Link postet ihr in eurem Kommentar zusammen mit einer Beschreibung zu eurem Problem an mich. Ich werde mir euren Report anschauen und Hilfestellung geben, wo evtl. das Problem liegen könnte.

Feedbacks sind wie immer willkommen. :-)

a silhouette of a person's head and shoulders, used as a default avatar