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Archive for August, 2014

LSB Best Effort

August 25th, 2014 by

As it has taken an extra ordinary amount of time for LSB to move forward a predicament has developed for many distributions, including openSUSE. Many of the requirements for LSB 4.1 can no longer be met and thus while the lsb package still builds it is not installable, see . The technically correct solution would be to drop the lsb package from the distribution, Factory now and thus 13.2 when it is released) as we can no longer be LSB compliant. However, the negative side effect is that some applications we do not and cannot package will no longer install, probably most notably google-chrome. Thus, having no lsb package, or no package that provides “lsb”, is a problem and has negative effects on many users. Therefore, the only way forward is to have an “lsb” package which provides LSB on a best effort basis.

Since LSB 4.1 and previous releases is a monolithic requirement, i.e. if you depend on lsb you depend/get everything that is in the standard, whether you want it or not, it is very likely that many applications depend on lsb while needing only a subset of the features. Thus, while we do not know all of those applications and cannot provide a list of “this will work and that will not“, there is a good chance that many external packages depending on lsb will not only install, but the payload they deliver will work with an lsb best effort approach. For those applications that are broken there is pretty much nothing we can do, sorry.

At a meeting last week at LinuxCon NA the goal was set to have LSB 5.0 released by the end of October. LSB 5.0 is incompatible with LSB 4.1 and prior releases. Thus, even if we provide an lsb 5.0 compliant package in short order after LSB 5.0 is released we still have the same risk as we do with the best effort approach. Basically some application packages that depend on “lsb” will deliver a payload that is broken. Exactly the opposite of what the LSB is trying to achieve, but hey one cannot hang on to Qt3 forever. Therefore, our “lsb best effort” approach to cover the gap does not create any additional pain.

Moving forward the LSB working group decided that the current approach, while providing value, has significant drawbacks. Predominantly there are not enough fingers on the keyboard to continue releases of such extensive “accepted standard” documentation. This is what we presently experience with the non installable lsb package. A for the LSB is being worked out. As this next/new LSB develops we will have to see how application providers deal with this. Without a formal LSB specification in the future, this problem will recur in a few years if application packages depend on a package named “lsb” which at some point may need to seize to exist. We will see how this plays out as the world we create keeps evolving.

Randa meetings – August 2014 – report from a Geeko’s point of view

August 25th, 2014 by
randa-mascot

Konqi Randa Mascot

2 Weeks ago myself and Françoise had joined the [http://www.randa-meetings.ch/ Randa Meeting] in Switzerland.

This event is a full hack-week where between around fifty people, that help to change the world, met together and hack around [http://www.kde.org KDE Community] related stuff. More on
KDE sprint page

I’ve heard about Randa from years, and had seen numerous reports about how Randa hack-week has allowed lots of changes : Plasma, Software collection, etc…

This year, we decided not only to financially sponsor the event, but also be part of as simple helper, with the status of newcomers in the KDE community contributors. Just to check how it goes.
Mario Fux (the organizer) didn’t fake his involvement to make this week a success, in a full open source spirit.



We’re reporting below a number of blog post that have been made during the hackweek.
And as the icing on the cake, you could just watch the video realized during the week.

videomaker
(more…)

Javascript tools in openSUSE round 2: js-beautify

August 18th, 2014 by

I’ve been talking about how code construction is necessary to your coding project. With Javascript obfuscation or making code shine is more important than ever. There will be many many eyes looking at your code and see if it’s worth of nothing. After getting friend with js-beautify there ain’t no excuse to keep you ugly looking code laying around. (more…)

BETA Proprietary AMD/ATI Catalyst fglrx 14.20 BETA v1.0 July 11 2014 rpm are released for several openSUSE version

August 17th, 2014 by

Back on line after several weeks in late, I’ve tried from my best to resolve the case of Factory rolling releases.

After some hacks on the latest Sebastian Siebert beta version (Made in June), I’ve been able to build now BETA fglrx rpm for several openSUSE version.

one day AMD will release or not a stable version. (On my side I prefer to see more efforts made on the free radeon driver.)

Notice

This release concern only owners of radeon HD5xxx or above. All owner of HD2xx and HD4xx are really encouraged to use the free radeon driver (which received a lot of improvement in 3.11+ kernels)

This is experimental & BETA software, it could fix issues you encountered (FGLRX not working for openSUSE 13.1),

What happen to Sebastian

I would like to have some news about Sebastian Siebert, he’s a essential key for future updates.
This time I was able (even with several weeks in late) to adjust the script to create a build for openSUSE Factory.
But one day something will broke in kernel or somewhere else, and we all need to find a way to fix it.

So if you’re in touch with Sebastian, could you drop me a comment or a private mail?

I would like to continue the good support we created 3.5 years ago, or at least knowning if I’m orphan 🙁

Beta Repository

To make things clear about the status of the drivers, it will not be published under the normal stable repository http://geeko.ioda.net/mirror/amd-fglrx.
I’ve created some times ago a beta repository located at http://geeko.ioda.net/mirror/amd-fglrx-beta.
The FGLRX 14.20 beta1 rpm are released for openSUSE version 12.3, 13.1 (+Tumbleweed), Factory

Signer of package my generic builder gpg key at Ioda-Net. (gpg key id 65BE584C)

For those interested by contributing or patches done to last Sebastian version, the raw-src on the server contain all the material used
http://geeko.ioda.net/mirror/amd-fglrx-beta/raw-src.

Installing the new repository

Admitting you’ve the normal repository named FGLRX, (use zypper lr -d to find the number or name you give it). You have to start by disabling it
so you could fallback to it quickly when new stable version will be published. Open a root console or add sudo at your convenience and issue the following command:

zypper mr -dR FGLRX

amd-fglrx-beta

To add another repository in the same console as root issue the following command which will install normally the right repository for your distribution

zypper ar -n FGLRX-BETA -cgf http://geeko.ioda.net/mirror/amd-fglrx-beta/openSUSE_`lsb-release -r | awk '{print $2}'` FGLRX-BETA

If you are using Tumbleweed use this one

zypper ar -n FGLRX-BETA -cgf http://geeko.ioda.net/mirror/amd-fglrx-beta/openSUSE_Tumbleweed FGLRX-BETA

Now the update/upgrade process

zypper dup -r FGLRX-BETA

Let the system upgrade the package, and try to enjoy the new beta.

(more…)

Fosdem proposals for main track presentations and developer rooms

August 3rd, 2014 by

Fosdem now invite proposals for main track presentations and developer rooms.

FOSDEM offers open source developers a place to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Renowned for being highly developer-oriented, the event brings together some 5000+ geeks from all over the world.

The fifteenth edition will take place on Saturday 31 January and Sunday 1 February 2015 at the usual location: ULB Campus Solbosch in Brussels.

We now invite proposals for main track presentations and developer rooms.

Previous editions have featured tracks centered around security, operating system development, community building, and many other topics. Presentations are expected to be 50 minutes long and should cater to a varied technical audience. The conference covers travel expenses and arranges accommodation for accepted main track speakers.

Developer rooms are assigned to self-organizing groups to work together on open source projects, to discuss topics relevant to a broader subset of the community, etc. Content may be scheduled in any format, subject to approval. Popular formats include presentation tracks, hacking sessions and panel discussions. Proposals involving collaboration across project or domain boundaries are strongly encouraged.

Proposals for main track presentations should be submitted using Pentabarf:

https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/

Developer room proposals should be emailed to devrooms@fosdem.org and be as detailed as possible. In particular, coordinators should indicate their affinity with the topic being proposed and provide a rough idea of the content they plan to schedule.

Key dates:

15 September
deadline for developer room proposals

1 October
deadline for main track proposals
accepted developer rooms announced

https://fosdem.org/2015/news/2014-07-01-call-for-participation/