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FunkyPenguinPlanning For The Future
FOSDEM 2010: One week later
It is almost one week after the 10th edition FOSDEM (Free Software Developers European Meeting) (http://fosdem.org/2010/) took place in the city of Brussels. As is usual, lots of Free Software developers, promotors and fans attended to the event. Different from other years, this time I had the chance to live on my own the FOSDEM spirit and had the chance to meet some FLOSS supporters from different projects, seeing the almighty improved KDE 4.4 being successfully presented under 640×480 adverse projecting conditions. In addition to this, lots of openSUSE people at the openSUSE booth
For those of you who couldn’t attend to FOSDEM or for those who attended and want to see it again, here some of the videos of the talks are available for download. Additionally, you can visit the official FOSDEM youtube channel, enjoy… and don’t forget: Have a lot of fun
supertuxkart does not start due to pulse audio
I tried to start supertuxkart, the marvelous race game, in openSUSE_11.2 (x86_64 if that matters) but it failed with the following error:
$ supertuxkart
Data files will be fetched from: '/usr/share/games/supertuxkart/'
AL lib: pulseaudio.c:382: Context did not get ready: Connection refused
The problem is a configuration setting in /etc/openal/alsoft.conf. Just uncomment the drivers line and remove pulse from the drivers line in that file and supertuxkart starts to work again.
It can be easily tested with the command openal-info. Before the change one get the error message shown above, and after one gets useful information.
I got this problem solved, due to a discussion on the ubuntu forums. Thank you guys.
Hopefully this short note is useful for someone.
Update (16 Feb 2010): just today openal was updated from version 1.10 to 1.11 and with the new version supertuxkart started without problems 
Exmap fixed, and a little resulting peek at memory usage
KDE Project:
I have fixed Exmap, my still favourite tool to measure system memory usage, to compile with latest kernels, and also to work on x86_64 (the latter was a bit of guess-work, but I think I got it right). KSysGuard seems to be getting close, and with Exmap unmaintained by its author :( I don't feel like doing this forever, but for now, it's still possible to get exmap from my home:llunak:kernel repository. And as I don't feel like trying to do cross-distro kernel packages in the buildservice, those not using openSUSE are left with either trying to package it for their other distro, or pick out the patches from the .src.rpm .
While I was at it, I had just a little look at memory usage. Since I had done quite some comparisons of KDE3's memory usage with other desktops in the past, the first thing that came to my mind was doing that quickly again. As these days LXDE appears to be the new lightweight kid on the block, I tried that one, and also Xfce. Finally there's TWM, basically just to show the memory usage without any desktop. All of them are default desktops on openSUSE 11.2 for a new user with a file browser and terminal open, the only exceptions being adding a mixer to the default Xfce setup for a reason that will be obvious later and not using the nvidia driver. LXDE is from the X11:lxde repo, KDE version is 4.3.5 that'll soon end up in an online update. So, here it is (for those who don't want to find out what all those values mean, the most important number here is the 'Effective Resident TOTALS').
Of course, this is not really comparable to my old memory usage test, for a number of reasons, such as this being x86_64 machine, the setup being different, and so on.
It's interesting to note that LXDE actually loses to Xfce. That 'python' there is in fact GMixer. That really shows that you don't get lightweight things unless you check the setup yourself. And it probably also shows that you can get lightweight things only if also your expectations are lightweight.
It also shows that KDE4's memory usage is not as bad some some might think, although it would be nice if somebody would be bored enough to analyse it in more detail. There seem to be enough people bored enough to just complain about KDE4 performance but not do anything else, and this is actually pretty simple. Or do you need an Akademy talk for that or what?
FOSDEM’10
Just laptop and headphones, book and a bit eat/drink for trip time and of course rube’s cube are in my rucksack On last weekend I was on FOSDEM.
FOSDEM is probably the most developer-oriented European Free and Open Source conference/event. As usual it was in Bruxelles, Belgium on first weekend of February. I was there with another Novell/SUSE employees. Majority of they are responsible for work with community. For example, boosters team.
On 5th February we went from Nuremberg at 12 am (by bus) and was in Brussel at 9 pm. At half past ten we (Holgi, Dinar and me) were on the beer event. What can I say about this evening? It was really nice to meet and speak with another developers for a cup of beer
The main thing that happens on conferences is learning. This was main reason why I was there and why Novell/SUSE help me to visit FOSDEM. A lot of presentation/talks about KDE, or packaging (RPM), or BuildService or… a lot about another open source projects…
I like such events It’s not only interesting presentations through which you open/learn a lot of new, but also possibility to get acquainted with other developers or is simple with enthusiasts whom it is unconditional as bring the contribution to development free and open source software.
The next evening I have devoted to walk across Bruxelles. It was very interesting to speak with people there. I have made a lot of photos.
For sure, I’m going to visit FOSDEM in next year, but for next time it will be depends on money. Anyway I will recomend to visit this event for every Linux-/*BSD- user/developer.
Sad and blue
I'm blue. And not only that, I seem to suffer from writer's block. If there's something like "code-writer's block", I probably suffer from that, too (I believe there is, there was just no Stephen King to write a few horror books about it so far .... something I can consider doing when I retire).I no longer feel the sense of accomplishment from the things I'm working on and I'm unhappy with the way where something I was always doing with passion (ie. YaST hacking) is heading. The fact that I can do absolutely nothing to change that further deepens my blues.
Most of the time, I tend to be the one trying to cheer up my colleagues and friends when they write blogposts like this by writing encouraging comments or pasting links to some feel-good stuff (my favourite one). Unfortunately, I can't do the same now for myself. Oh well ...
AstroGarrobo Beta
Space, the Final Frontier! This is the tale of one Amateur Astronomer that have found in openSUSE a terrific tool for public outreach, self-learning and teaching platform.
Ok, that was a bit exagerated.
But the truth is that I am enjoying the new SUSE Studio suite. And that’s because it is facilitating my job as an educator. I work with the Nicaraguan Amateur Astronomers Society (ANASA) in teaching basic astronomy to the public. Obviously, my workhorse is an openSUSE laptop, loaded with Stellarium, Celestia, KStars and Xephem (and many other tools for my personal job as an astronomer).
For a long time, I’ve been advocating the use of openSUSE as the reliable, user-friendly and safe Linux distribution that it is, but I face a big barrier: the big majority of people attending our astronomy lessons does not have the needed technical skill and knowledge to install a new operative system, specially one like Linux.
So, I’ve decided to build a Live CD using SUSE Studio, focused entirely in provide the same basic tools for learning the sky and their basic steps in Amateur Astronomy.
The name of the Project: AstroGarrobo
Garrobo is the Nicaraguan name for a male Iguana. The Nicaraguan Linux community have nicknamed our openSUSE mascot as Garrobo instead of the familiar Chameleon, because a Chameleon is a rare species here in my Nation.
So far, there is a Beta version available for download at SourceForge. I have received many valuable reports from Beta Testers from different parts o the world.
My goal here is to obtain a stable LiveCD, for free distribution, that may help others to obtain the tools needed to inspire, feed and motivate their love for Space.
I’ve written a more detailed explanation of this project in my Blog (in Spanish). I would appreciate any comments, insights and recommendations about AstroGarrobo.
Clear skies!
Установка Oracle XE на OpenSuse 11.2
After FOSDEM
I look forward to putting those plans into action which many of us agreed to collaborate on and to also continue to innovate new ideas and concepts that will allow our community to grow and expand into new areas.
In addition, it was great to finally meet those members of the Fedora community where up until now I only knew a name. It was excellent to meet in person and put faces to those names.
Most of all, I would like to thank the ambassadors for the fun time we had and look forward to doing it all again next year :-)
Patch für die Hercules DJ Console-Treiber für Linux 2.6.30 und neuer
Die Treiber für die DJ Controller von Hercules gibt es zwar in Paketen für so ziemlich alle Distributionsarten, aber leider nicht für die aktuellsten Version. Unter openSUSE 11.2 funktioniert der Treiber zunächst nicht, da dieses Kernel 2.6.31 verwendet, der Treiber aber eine ALSA-Funktion nutzen möchte welche in dieser Version aus dem Kernel flog. Ein kleiner Patch behebt das Problem indem er den entscheidenden Aufruf auf die neue Funktion ändert.
Hat man den Treiber nach der Anleitung auf der Webseite installiert, so kann man mit dkms status prüfen ob dieser im System erfolgreich installiert wurde. Auf System mit Kernel 2.6.30 aufwärt bekommt man hier nur die enttäuschende Meldung: hdjmod, 1.28: added. Wäre die installation erfolgreich gewesen müsste hier installed stehen.
Der nächste Schritt nach dem add ist der build. Ein Blick in das Logdatei /var/lib/dkms/hdjmod/1.28/build/make.log zeigt das Problem:
/var/lib/dkms/hdjmod/1.28/build/device.c:1663: error: implicit declaration of function ‘snd_card_new’ Der Patch behebt das Problem indem er für neuere Kernel den Funktionsaufruf durch auf die neue Funktion snd_card_create ändert. Um ihn anzuwenden wechselt man in das Verzeichnis /usr/src/hdjmod-1.28 und ruft dort sudo patch -p1 < /path/to/hdjmod_kernel_2.6.30.patch auf. Anschließen baut man mit sudo dkms build -m hdjmod -v 1.28 das Modul und installiert es mit sudo dkms install -m hdjmod -v 1.28.
Anschließend kann man im DJ Control Panel sehen, dass der Treiber beim Anschließen der Konsole erfolgreich geladen wird. Insgesamt ein gutes Beispiel dafür, wieso man Treiber Open Source halten sollte, aber leider auch ein gute Beispiel, wieso man Treiber nicht außerhalb des Kernels pflegen sollte.