Poppler reunification
24 Jan 10 at 01:49 | 
gentoo | 
17
Since we have eapi-2 use dependencies now (and have had them for a while…), there is no longer any need to split the poppler package (a popular PDF library). As first major step in the reunification of the split poppler packages, I just committed a new ‘monolithic’ ebuild, app-text/poppler-0.12.3, to our testing branch in portage. This ebuild was developed by Maciej Mrozowski from our KDE team, and uses the cmake buildsystem, which is actually preferred by upstream.
You should have no problem migrating to the new monolithic poppler, as portage should be able to solve the blockers automatically. As a second step we will adjust the dependencies in packages that need poppler, to no longer depend on the virtual ebuilds, but on app-text/poppler directly, with the correct useflag dependencies. This work will be done gradually over the coming days.
Version 0.12.3 is also our stable candidate, and a stable request will be filed soon. Then all old versions of poppler and the split packages, as well as the virtuals, will be removed for security reasons. Feel free to come by #gentoo-kde on Freenode if you have any questions.
LXDE 0.5.0 update
23 Jan 10 at 22:00 | gentoo, lxde | 5
Hello there! Long time no see, I know. (At least on this blog.) For our LXDE users out there, I want to point you to the fact that Victor Ostorga has provided us with some updated packages, and we now have lxde-meta-0.5.0 in portage, in the testing branch. So go ahead and test these updated packages out, and report any bugs you find!
LXDE updates
4 Aug 09 at 21:30 | gentoo, lxde, updates | 7
Lately we updated some of the LXDE packages in Gentoo, and tonight I added a few more. We have now a practically complete LXDE desktop on Gentoo. So if you feel like trying the most lightweight desktop environment, consider to emerge lxde-meta. If you come across any bugs or other issues, please let us know. Bugs should be reported at bugs.gentoo.org. Support questions are welcome in the #gentoo and #gentoo-desktop IRC channels on Freenode, or #lxde on OFTC. You can also go to the forums.
The current version, lxde-meta-0.4.2 and its dependencies, is considered our stable candidate, so we’d like to straighten out any issues there may exist. Also, some documentation would be welcome. So if you want to contribute a “How to configure and use LXDE on Gentoo” guide, we’d be very thankful. Or if you want to help maintaining LXDE in portage, we could always use more people. So contact me if you’re interested in a herd tester or developer position.
We also have an overlay with live ebuilds, but it is basically unmaintained. So I cannot recommend you use it, unless you want to test and update the ebuilds. If you’re on bitbucket, send me a pull request. We used to have several user contributors, but I guess they are too busy with other things now — as am I. Currently my focus for LXDE (whenever I have time for it) is to get the packages up-to-date with the latest released versions and get what we have now tested and marked stable.
So have you tried LXDE yet? What are your thoughts? And are you willing to contribute?
How to re-enable backspace as back key in Firefox 3.5
3 Aug 09 at 10:59 | browser, firefox, howto | 4
While Firefox 3.5 has some good improvements, it’s not all good. We geeks are quite disappointed by the decision to disable the backspace key. In previous versions backspace would take you back a page in history. Which is great when you are on the keyboard already — no need to grab the mouse. But in 3.5 this has been disabled.
Fortunately, this is a setting that you can change. Here’s how:
- Open a new tab and type about:config in the address bar.
- In the Filter search field type backspace — this should bring up the browser.backspace_action preference.
- Right-click on the value (defaults to 2) and select Modify.
- In the pop-up window change the value to 0 (that’s zero) and accept.
- Enjoy your backspace key to go back a page in history again.
For more information see the mozillazine knowledge base page on about:config.
Why DRM on news is a bad idea
2 Aug 09 at 11:31 | freedom, opinion | Add your comment
As Techdirt writes:
This has been said before (multiple times) but you don’t rescue your business model by “protecting” against what people want to do. You don’t rescue your business model by wasting resources trying to hold back what people want to do. You rescue your business by providing more value and figuring out a way to monetize that value. Putting bogus DRM on news does none of that. It only hastens failure.
I’ve been saying that all along, but the old media don’t get it. If they refuse to evolve, they will go extinct, like dinosaurs.
Why I won’t buy a Kindle
22 Jul 09 at 21:03 | freedom | Add your comment
If you didn’t know why DRM is bad, this story on Slate will tell you. If I ever buy an ebook reader gadget, it will only be one on which I really own the files, and have full control.
One small step for a man
21 Jul 09 at 16:40 | open source | Add your comment
But a giant leap for Microsoft!
The Redmond giant that we all love to hate has surprised many Free Software enthusiasts by releasing “20,000 lines of code under GPLv2 for three Linux device drivers. Microsoft says its first open source Linux code contribution is designed to speed the performance of the operating system when it’s run in a Hyper-V virtual machine.” (source: DesktopLinux.com) See also the article by our resident kernel developer GregKH.
So much for the “cancerous” license… Anyway, I’m happy they are starting to see the light.
Hitchhiker sources bumped to 2.6.30-r2
20 Jul 09 at 19:45 | gentoo, kernel, linux, overlay, reiser4 | 3
Following the release of Linux 2.6.30.2 which includes a fix for the latest security issue, I have bumped hitchhiker-sources, my “enhanced” version of the Linux kernel sources with Gentoo patches, as well as Reiser4, AUFS2 and TuxOnIce patches. So everyone is strongly encouraged to upgrade! The ebuild is in berkano overlay. Or get the patch tarball direct from the download location.
Qt 4.5.2 changes
27 Jun 09 at 18:48 | gentoo, qt | 4
This is basically a heads-up for Qt users on Gentoo. We are about to add the new 4.5.2 release to portage. With this release we have changed a few things. We no longer have certain useflags enabled by default that are already enabled by the desktop profile. This means that if you are not using the desktop profile, you should look if any useflags have changed and decide which ones you want to enable. Or otherwise, that you no longer need to disable them if you want a minimal install.
We also have removed the need for the libX11 dependency in qt-core and a couple of other non-gui modules. So you can now for example have a server-only install of quassel with minimal dependencies. The libX11 dependency is now only pulled by packages that really need it.
Another thing that changed is that we dropped the custom-cxxflags useflag. After a long period of testing we haven’t come across any problems with “advanced” cxxflags in Qt 4.5, so now we always let the Qt modules be built with the user-specified flags. As this is an eclass level change, this means also users of the stable branch will see this change. An emerge --newuse world will trigger a recompile of Qt, but this means you will get better optimizations.
Gentoo dying?
4 Jun 09 at 00:53 | gentoo | 76
As the CIA.vc stats show, Gentoo is far from dead, whatever anyone else may claim. I’ll admit it wasn’t a typical day, but last month’s number of 10k commits speaks for itself.
