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Archive for April, 2009

ARM support in openSUSE Buildservice – currently broken

April 26th, 2009 by

With this message I want to make you aware that the ARM builds inside OBS are currently broken. This is due to an update of the buildservice worker code on Friday. This update removes the limit of 2 GB for the build results from the buildservice. Also, the performance of the buildservice backend code has been improved for high loads with lots of new events.

We are now faced with an incompatibility of the underlying QEMU emulator with this new code to extract the build results in the combination of XEN and QEMU user mode. You can in fact see in your build logs for ARM error messages like:

… saving built packages
/usr/src/packages/DEBS/dsme-tools_0.6mer3_armel.deb
Unsupported ioctl: cmd=0x0002 (0)
FIGETBSZ: Function not implemented
Unsupported ioctl: cmd=0x80041272 (4)

We are working on a solution already. A new QEMU with this and another issues fixed is already under test and has been dropped to openSUSE:Tools:Devel/qemu-svn. I will inform you when we have this fixed in the public build service.

openSUSE-Education Live Media including official updates

April 24th, 2009 by

Currently, the openSUSE-Education team is “playing” with the new features of the external build service. As a first result, we’re proud to announce our new live/installable DVD!

This DVD includes:

  • the official updates to all packages since the openSUSE 11.1 release
  • fully pre-configured, ready to run KIWI-LTSP server
  • tons of applications from openSUSE Education repository

You can get it from here: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Education/images/iso/ – it’s called openSUSE-Edu-KIWI-LTSP-live*.iso (the openSUSE-Edu-KIWI-LTSP-live-unstable*.iso is for development only). Please watch for the Build Numbers at the end of the ISO-Name if you report bugs in our bugzilla.

Have a look at CyberOrgs blog on the most efficient ways to download the image.

Dropbox on openSUSE 11.1

April 21st, 2009 by

Today I discovered Dropbox, an online storage and synchronization tool. It offers 2 GB of free storage to its users and is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. I’ve tested it on Linux and Windows so far and it’s working great. If you’re tired of carrying around USB sticks to share files between different workstations, be sure to check it out. Hint: by clicking on the link above you (and me) will get 250 MB of free online storage as a bonus.

Installation and Setup on openSUSE 11.1 is a breeze

  • 1-click install is available in Gnome:Community
  • Logout from your GNOME Session and login again
  • Run “Dropbox” from the GNOME menu to link your workstation to your Dropbox account

Currently there’s a plugin for nautilus available. Hopefully some KDE coders more experienced than me will come up with a Dolphin plugin soon. Where the Dropbox daemon is proprietary software, the nautilus plugin is released under GPL and its sourcecode should provide the required information about the Dropbox daemon’s API to port it to KDE/Dolphin as well.

Have fun!

OpenOffice_org 3.1 beta5 available

April 21st, 2009 by

I’m happy to announce that OpenOffice.org 3.1 beta5 packages are available in the Build Service OpenOffice:org:UNSTABLE project. They include many upstream and Go-oo fixes. Please, look for more details about the openSUSE OOo build on the wiki page.

The packages are beta versions and might include even serious bugs. Therefore they are not intended for data-critical usage. A good practice is to archive any important data before an use, …

We kindly ask any interested beta testers to try the package and report bugs. See also the known blocker bugs below.

This build finally includes the alpha version of OpenXML export filters (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX). There are still many serious bugs, e.g. bnc#496431, bnc#492896. We also added many fixes to the OpenXML import filters. These changes affected also the import and export filters of the old binary file formats (DOC, XLS, PPT). So we kindly ask anyone to try this functionality and report bugs especially in the import and export of the old binary file formats.

Known blocker bugs:

  • Word DOC with the table of connt is read only (bnc#400884)
  • Report builder extension does not work (bnc#496747)
  • Other information and plans:

    I would like to provide beta5 or rc1 build the following week. I expect the final release in the first half of May. We will be slightly delayed after the upstream release.

    How to track changes in packages: osc vc

    April 21st, 2009 by

    As you may know, SUSE was originally based on Slackware. And some some relics from those early days if SUSE survives to present. The biggest example visible for end-users was packaging of desktop environment to /opt. Gnome was switched few years ago and KDE3 packages still remains in it, because packagers decided to focus on KDE4, so only those packages are comfortable with FHS and are installed into /usr.

    With opening of SUSE development towards community via BuildService’s collaboration, or Contrib, the another relict of Slackware days was raised – which I mentioned in my previous post – a .changes file.

    This file is used in SUSE for tracing of package changes and rpm %changelog is created from this file during build. As it has a consistent format, we used an internal command called vc for add a new entry to it and this tool generates a proper header of changes file. So after my last patch, implementation of osc vc was a logical (but not straightforward) job.

    After some discussions with Ludwig Nussel and on opensuse-buildservice mailing lists, I implemented and committed an osc vc command. This is based on buildvc script written by Ludwig and is available in build.rpm (from version 2009.04.17). It has the same behavior as an old vc command.

    Basic usage of this command is simple:

    user@host:some:project/package/ $ osc vc
    

    Command will find a changes file, open it in EDITOR (default is vim) and fill a header. You can also use it in non-interactive mode using -m MESSAGE. You can also specify a file to edit, or edit a file in other directory than current, … – see osc vc –help

    The main difference between buildvc and osc variant is in e-mail address handling. The osc implementation has more sources of it, so it try to

    1. use content of mailaddr variable (same as buildvc)
    2. read a configuration from ~/.oscrc
    3. read an email from user’s metadata (see osc meta user your_login)

    This is because many users want to use a different e-mail for changelogs than iChain one, so osc allows configure an email for each instance of BuildService. Appropriate part of ~/.oscrc looks like

    [https://api.opensuse.org/]
    user = login
    pass = password
    email = user@defined.email
    

    Now out: python-gasp & bleachbit

    April 20th, 2009 by

    Hello Mates,

    today i submitted two new Programs into openSUSE:Factory:Contrib:

    * python-gasp (A Library for Python Students)
    * bleachbit (Cleanup in /home or where you want.

    I wish you many Joy…

    Better commit message handling for osc

    April 16th, 2009 by

    If you are familiar with SUSE packages, you probably know about .changes files, which is used for tracking changes. This file has a defined structure and is converted to common %changelog section in spec file during build of package. It worked well with many internal tools and everyone was happy in those old good times ;-).

    Nowadays, we had a BuildService and osc, which has it owns commit log. I have aimed to keep the content of changes and osc changelog synchronized. But manual copying of it is not very reliable approach. So I wrote a small patch (and Adrian gives me a write access, so it is a r7099), which checks changes in it and add them to commit message as a template, so it will be easier to keep them synchronized.

    How it works:

    vi package.spec # do some changes
    vc -m "some changes done" # vc is an internal command
    osc commit
    

    and osc will open an editor with content like this

      1 - some changes done
      2 --This line, and those below, will be ignored--
      3
      4 M    package.changes
      5
      6 Diff for working copy: .
      7 Index: package.changes
      8 ===================================================================
      9
     10 --- package.changes     (revision 19)
     11 +++ package.changes     (working copy)
     12 @@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
     13 +-------------------------------------------------------------------
     14 +Thu Apr 16 16:00:58 CEST 2009 - mvyskocil@suse.cz
     15 +
     16 +- some changes done
     17 +
     18  -------------------------------------------------------------------
     19  Thu Apr 16 15:37:52 CEST 2009 - mvyskocil@suse.cz
    

    Now you can type :w (save) for commit, or :q! (quit without saving) for abort. The behavior of -m argument is unchanged.

    Combine osc with git

    April 15th, 2009 by

    Yesterday Jan-Simon (dl9pf) tells me about an great Program calls “git”. Git is an Version-Administration Program. Anything knows the Problem. We working on an Project into our osc, and 2 Weeks later, we don’t know, what the last changes was. On this place can git help.Now following a short Introducting:

    First of all we need an .git Folder. In my case i have all Projects in ~/osc/- As example i’m going to my foo.

    $ ~/osc> cd foo
    $ ~/osc/foo> git init
    Then git says:
    Initialized empty Git repository in /home/sascha/osc/foo/.git/

    $~/osc/foo> echo 123 > datei1

    $~/osc/foo> git add datei1
    This adds datei1 to your .git folder. If you use git add * you can add more than one File.

    $~/osc/foo> git commit -m”Initial Version” (Or what you want)
    git says:
    Created initial commit a7458cf: Test
    1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
    create mode 100644 datei1

    $~/osc/foo> echo 456 > datei2
    $~/osc/foo> git commit -m”Change 1″
    git says:
    Created commit d1ef978: Change 1
    1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
    create mode 100644 datei2
    $~/osc/foo> gitk (this is an GUI)

    That looks:

    gitk

    There you can find all Changes since “Intial Version”.  Git can also manage branches and can merge it perfectly. So i think that git is very good Tool. And an good completion. With an wrapper file it is also possible to add or remove files in osc and git. Very nice -)

    Updated Software: necpp 1.3.0+cvs20090101

    April 12th, 2009 by

    The Program necpp in Version 1.3.0+cvs20090101 is out. I’ve published it in hamradio:/ and home:saigkill

    Problem with an selfmade DVD (DVD RECORDER)

    April 12th, 2009 by

    Symptom:

    Since a few days i had an Problem with playing selfmade DVDs. CDs (Audio and *.avi) can be playes. Original DVD’s too. But i have made DVDs with an DVD RECORDER (for TV). Then i burn 2 Movies on the DVD and the Recorder makes an own Menu for the Movies. But if i insert the DVD to the DVD Player, the Device Monitor sayd me, the only three Alternatives are: open in Dolphin, open with Digikam and do nothing. If i choosed Dolphin, dolphin startsand then i see in the bottom an Red Line with the Error “No Access”.

    First tries:

    I listed the Directory:
    lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 15:24 cdrom -> sr0
    lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 cdrw -> sr1
    lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 dvd -> sr0
    lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 fb -> fb0
    brw-rw—-+  1 root   cdrom         11,   0 10. Apr 11:45 sr0
    brw-rw—-+  1 root   cdrom   11,   1 10. Apr 11:45 sr1
    lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 scd0 -> sr0

    lrwxrwxrwx   1 root   root          3 10. Apr 11:45 scd1 -> sr
    My User is in the Group “cdrom”.

    Then  i’ve checked /etc/udev/rules.d 99-my.rules:
    There i found: KERNEL==”[sr*[0-9]”,GROUP=”cdrom”,MODE=”0660″

    getfacl /dev/sr0 says:

    getfacl: Removing leading ‘/’ from absolute path names
    # file: dev/sr0

    # owner: root

    # group: cdrom user::rw-
    user:sascha:rw-
    group::rw-
    mask::rw-
    other::—
    For sr1 its the same output.

    Then i go to  /usr/share/PolicyKit/policy/org.freedesktop.hal.device-access.policy and set the following:
    — org.freedesktop.hal.device-access.policy.orig   2008-12-23
    23:34:16.241840351 +0100
    +++ org.freedesktop.hal.device-access.policy        2008-12-23
    23:34:45.375339211 +0100
    @@ -59,8 +59,8 @@
    <description>Directly access removable block
    devices</description> <message>System policy prevents access to
    removable block devices</message>
    <defaults>
    –      <allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
    –      <allow_active>no</allow_active>
    +      <allow_inactive>yes</allow_inactive>
    +      <allow_active>yes</allow_active>
    </defaults>
    </action>

    Then i made an reboot, but nothing happens. The same Error is
    present.

    Today i found out, that all non accessable DVD have the following
    Rights:
    dr–r–r–  3 sascha 4294967295   88 15. Okt 2006  DVD_VIDEO_RECORDER/
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^

    Strange permissions.

    SOLUTION:

    Then i created an File in /usr/share/kde4/apps/solid/action with the following:

    [Desktop Entry]
    X-KDE-Solid-Predicate=[ StorageVolume.ignored == false AND OpticalDisc.availableContent == ‘Data|VideoDvd’ ]
    Type=Service
    Actions=open;

    [Desktop Action open]
    Name=Play DVD with video player (Kaffeine)
    Exec=kaffeine -d %d DVD
    Icon=kaffeine

    After an relogin, the new Alternative are present. I can go to open with Kaffeine, and than we have finished this task.

    BTW: Please check if KDE3/Kaffeine is installed. Without them the Workaround will not work.

    Special Thanks goes to: slowhand/medwin