Colin Charles Agenda

Today, I had a problem. I’d been used to doing rpm -q –changelog <packagename> and generally piping that through less. I sat at a Ubuntu terminal, and wondered how to do this. Poring through the man pages for apt-get or even dpkg, proved worthless. So, I hopped on to #ubuntu on Freenode, to have a rather enlightening conversation:

Oct 11 10:11:37 <ccharles>      hi! does anyone here know the dpkg/apt equivalent to rpm -q –changelog ?
Oct 11 10:12:10 <Pelo>  ccharles, man apt and man dpkg see what it says
Oct 11 10:12:46 <ccharles>      Pelo: you’d think i had already tried that, and failed, which is why i came here

At which point, I’m wondering what the clue-level of the channel is. So I hop onto #luv, the channel for my local LUG, and ask there. Not long after, I post this back on #ubuntu:

Oct 11 10:34:19 <ccharles>      pelo: the correct answer next time, is apt-listchanges, or even zless /usr/share/doc/<packagename>/changelog.Debian.gz or if you have internet access, aptitude changelog <packagename> (with thanks to cafuego for telling me)

I remember in my active Fedora days, we used to refer to #fedora as a bit of a wasteland, largely populated by meat-heads. However, it was also the primary contact point for non-meat-heads, for a non-development question. And a lot of folk on #fedora-devel never ever joined #fedora. This is probably largely the same with #ubuntu/#ubuntu-devel. This creates a disconnect within the community.

rpm -q –changelog equivalents on Debian

• apt-listchanges is written by an Ubuntite (is that what they’re called?), and requires installing. It also requires access to the package .deb, which seemed counter-intuitive.
• aptitude changelog <packagename> - useful, but seems redundant. It connects to the Internet to fetch this data for you, chewing up your bandwidth, and requiring you to have Internet access
• zless /usr/share/doc/<packagename>/changelog.Debian.gz - the winner, quite clearly. No Internet access required, it pulls directly off your disk, and its all in less

However, RPM still seems to shine quite this bit more, in comparison. Maybe someone wants to update the Switching to Ubuntu From Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Fedora guide.

Technorati Tags: fedora, ubuntu, rpm, dpkg, apt, changelog, apt-listchanges, aptitude, irc, community

I was at MODM4 yesterday, and as always, great fun was had. One common recurring theme though, was getting MySQL to start automatically upon a Linux server’s restart, something which I would have thought just came pretty naturally to sys-admin types. Upon further probing, these systems were all generally CentOS or RHEL based, and it wasn’t just MySQL that gave them problems - it was anything they’d installed out of the stock packages (lighttpd was a popular Apache replacement, that suffered from the same fate).

While I didn’t recollect the exact part of the manual it was stored in, I was informing everyone to make use of the chkconfig tool. Its really as simple as making sure there exists a /etc/init.d/mysql (it must be executable - chmod +x), doing a chkconfig –add mysql and making sure that it starts up at the correct runlevels (typically 3, 4 and 5). A simple chkconfig –level 345 mysql on and you’re ready to rock. Repeat, rinse for lighttpd or anything else, that has a startup script, really.

And read the manual - section 2.4.16.2.2. Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically. chkconfig’s manual page is a little sparse, so consider some of the Red Hat Knowledgebase entries: How do I use chkconfig to enable a script for a service that accepts start, stop, and status options? and Why does an installed service, like ypbind, not show up in the chkconfig list, but I am able to start it manually? Kudos to Red Hat’s open KB as well…

Technorati Tags: chkconfig, rhel, centos, fedora, mysql

Today I appreciate YUM’s mirror-select tool, in comparison to what APT offers me. OptusNet’s mirror is down, so its a case of editing /etc/apt/sources.list and doing a %s/au.archive/archive/g. With YUM, it’d have just found another mirror - now that seems like (good) redundancy to me.

Technorati Tags: yum, fedora, ubuntu, apt

Does anyone know where I can get this? You know, to decorate my laptop with? Preferably large stickers to stick at the back of my laptop screen and small enough badges for sticking on desktops, or even to replace the “Designed for Windows” badge.

Closest I’ve found is this little bit from Fedora Weekly News Issue #95 on stickers. Stop worrying about the trademark violations for crying out loud, and have official stickers already.

This was the problem, and probably still is the problem with The Fedora Project. Discuss, discuss, discuss, but when it comes to doing, there’s a lot of waiting. Well, its not only the Fedora Project that suffers from this disease known as over-discussing. Probably a rant for another day…

P/S: Someone from the Ubuntu LoCo team was handing out Ubuntu stickers as well as PC badges (those small ones that look like the Intel Inside or Powered by Windows logos) at linux.conf.au 2007. It’d be cool if there were Fedora ones to hand out as well…

Technorati Tags: fedora, stickers, badges

Filed in the “I wish I had done this, instead of just thinking about it and sitting on my arse” department.

Fedora Daily Package
The Fedora Daily Package is a great site. Chris Tyler, even gets to pimp his book! Its filled with nuggets of useful information, tips and tricks on how to get things going, and introduces you to some new software that you thought might not have existed. I can only wish the energy to continue, and for us to keep on getting great tips and tricks. Inspired largely from the Debian Package of the Day, one day we might see Fedora’s package count match Debian’s universe.

Full Circle Magazine
Full Circle Magazine, is touted as the free Ubuntu Community Magazine. It looks very, very interesting, but makes a few classic mistakes. Having only a PDF version of the online magazine, is a bit of a bummer - the web is largely best viewed in a web browser, so the individual articles should really be sitting as individual links, and searchable by Google, and so forth. The other mistake I think is not offering monetary rewards for article contribution - IBM developerWorks and Red Hat Magazine offer USD$500 per accepted article, and no matter what you want to say, money is always handy. In these days when one can publish so easily on their own blog, get their own AdSense dollars, it probably makes more sense to pay for content thats going into a “magazine” or being used for commercial marketing purposes (to show an active, vibrant community, even).

Here’s hoping Canonical decide to adopt Full Circle Magazine, make a web-also version, pay even USD$100 per article, and continue its success.

Low cost French computer
The Minitel is something I saw in my French textbooks, back during my high school days of learning a new language. It seems that Neuf Cegetel, a French ISP is now aiming to create a low-cost computer for folk that are unable or unwilling to buy a computer. Reminds me of the PC Gemilang. It has open source software - Firefox, Abiword, Gnumeric. It comes with very little space, but with the world moving online, thin clients seem to make more sense, everyday. There’s also a good chance this has more success than the PC Gemilang, as its ISP supported. And cheap - €167.90 buys you a computer, keyboard, mouse, camera, and a 14″ color monitor. Thats only about €50 cheaper than the PC Gemilang.

I think its safe to say that the Internet has reached everyone that matters, in most first world countries. Anyone else (with such low broadband and Internet penetration rates) is probably not into the Internet, because they’re not even wanting to get a computer. Various reasons probably apply here, but when you bring the cost of accessing the Internet down to a rate where people see it as a consumable, thats where the next wave of Internet customers are coming from. ISPs and online business folk probably should see this shift coming, soon.

Technorati Tags: fedora daily package, debian package of the day, fedora, ubuntu, full circle magazine, ubuntu magazine, minitel, low cost computer, france, pc gemilang

Knowing Fedora (Core 6), I won’t see Thunderbird 2.0 anytime soon, so I decided to get it via upstream. Some initial comments.

No x86_64?
Thunderbird only says Linux i686. In fact, its a 32-bit binary, as opposed to what Fedora provides in 64-bit form.
file thunderbird-bin
thunderbird-bin: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.2.5, stripped
file /usr/lib64/thunderbird-1.5.0.10/thunderbird-bin
/usr/lib64/thunderbird-1.5.0.10/thunderbird-bin: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.9, stripped

Running it
Just copy it to /usr/lib/thunderbird, and it currently runs via /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird. /usr/bin/thunderbird clearly needs to be edited to allow for using Thunderbird 2.0. A good way to get it going:
mv /usr/bin/thunderbird /usr/bin/thunderbird-1.5
ln -s /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird /usr/bin/thunderbird

Extensions
Some of them that I use, don’t work. QuickQuote (to select part of a message, and hit reply, and only that gets quoted, ala Evolution), Remove Duplicate Messages, Sync On Arrival (important when using IMAP). I am confident that we’ll see them very soon.

New stuff
The new visual interface is very slick. It looks rather professional, and I am thrilled by it.

New mail notification that pops up, looks a little like AVG scanning your email on Windows, but it actually shows useful information, and will be a productivity boost. I notice that it also doesn’t only appear in the workspace Thunderbird is running in, but in the current active workspace. This may become a nuisance when in the zone for work, and you’re getting mail every 10 minutes.

Compacting folders? I can select an option to do it automatically from now on. Yet another dialog that won’t bug me on occassion.

When Thunderbird detects new messages in the folder, it normally dispalys such a folder differently. On mouse overs now work wonders, as it shows summaries of what the new messages are.

Google Support
Gmail support within the accounts field, means I’ll actually be reading my GMail accounts a lot more. Its interesting to have Google integration built right in, because getting the Google Calendar syncing to Thunderbird 2 is also not a problem.

Gmail support is such that your mail gets POP-ed down by default, but its also kept on the server. You sort of get the best of both worlds. What obviously doesn’t work, is label support - you tend to get a lot of messages in your Inbox. Then comes the problem of also archiving your messages offline. Its not streamlined, say like IMAP, which is something Google should really consider enabling.

In conclusion…
I’ll play with this a lot more, as I use Thunderbird on Linux and OS X for daily use. I prefer the regular theme now, over the CrossOver theme on the Mac. I dearly miss Sync on Arrival. And I just got annoyed by the new message notification pop-up, as it came up while I was typing this entry! (You can disable it in Preferences, if need be.)

Technorati Tags: thunderbird, thunderbird 2.0, extensions, new UI, usability, google, gmail

Today I upgraded my kernel, so am running 2.6.20-1.2944.fc6 and am pleased to announce that on the Dell Inspiron 640m, brightness control works. Well, sort of. I can reduce brightness and increase brightness, but increasing brightness (Fn+ UpArrow) while in X, still causes X to crash. All that’s recorded is:

Apr 18 11:54:23 hermione kernel: atkbd.c: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0x8b on isa0060/serio0).
Apr 18 11:54:23 hermione kernel: atkbd.c: Use ’setkeycodes e00b <keycode>’ to make it known.

As long as video.ko is loaded, I can hit Fn+F8 quite successfully, and get video out working now. Its in mirror mode as opposed to a stretched desktop, but I’m somewhat thankful as GNOMEs panel is still retarded when it comes to shrinking down (watch it go apeshit on you). However, repeated attempts (say, 8th time pressing the Fn+F8 key combo and it cycles between displaying on the onboard LCD, mirroring, just the external LCD, and so on) will cause the entire display driver to crash. Nothing will then be viewable, so a reboot is in lieu.

The sound control via hardware buttons still do not work (they used to back in the 2.6.18 days, afaik). Both the hardware and the Fn-key combos don’t work.

So I decided I need to be a good open source citizen, and report some bugs. #236866, #236867. I also updated the Fedora on the Dell Inspiron 640m wiki page.

For what it is worth, Desktop Effects has decided to stop working (to amuse myself I tried to enable it today). Its now nice to note that I can give presentations using my Linux box again, and things will be working (quite unlike my last experience) . I’m also excited to note that Ubuntu Feisty Fawn is coming out tomorrow, and at the same time annoyed that I’ll be travelling and don’t want to futz with my main work machine. Rob Weir will be glad to note that its only taken 2 years for me to start seeing the light.

Technorati Tags: linux, fedora, dell, dell 640m, inspiron 640m, xorg, crash, brightness control, video out, sound, hardware buttons,

It is. Look what gems I found today:

• Ubuntu Feisty will have a cool command-not-found package. It will tell you where to find said application, and how to install it. Look at the examples in Alan Pope’s blog entry. (apparently, this is in Edgy)
• Fluendo has got some amazing codecs, and its worth supporting them by buying it. Fedora 7, instead of complaining of a missing codec everytime you try to play something, will have a codec buddy, according to Chris Blizzard.

All this means great things for Linux users. And new Linux users. Think about how easy all this will be, for the average home user? They follow something online, they hit up the command line, and they get helped. Even better if they don’t have to hit up the command line, just pop the DVD in, Totem sees it, it doesn’t have the correct codec, and voila, codec buddy helps you go to the Fluendo store, selecting exactly what you need. Have credit card handy, and you’re ready to watch your content.

Keeping in mind, that your mother will not want to know the difference between Windows Media or MPEG2. She’ll just want it to work! (In fact, after being spoiled by OS X for over 1.5 years, I too just want things to work.) Of course now, I do hope that both the Linux community distribution behemoths share these cool features (or should I say, adapt from each other).

Technorati Tags: end user, linux, friendly, command-not-found, codec buddy, fluendo, codecs, usability