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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.

    Posted in Desktop, OpenOffice.org | 4 Comments »

    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

    Posted in Build Service, Packaging | Comments Off on How to track changes in packages: osc vc

    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…

    Posted in Packaging | 1 Comment »

    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.

    Posted in Build Service, Packaging | 4 Comments »

    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 -)

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in Build Service, Documentation, lizards.openSUSE.org, Packaging | 2 Comments »

    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

    Tags:
    Posted in Build Service, lizards.openSUSE.org, Packaging | Comments Off on Updated Software: necpp 1.3.0+cvs20090101

    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

    Tags: ,
    Posted in Documentation, KDE, lizards.openSUSE.org, Usability | Comments Off on Problem with an selfmade DVD (DVD RECORDER)

    A Week of Geeko Love

    April 8th, 2009 by
    openSUSE Week Counter

    openSUSE Week Counter

    UPDATE: New Dates. You now have more time to plan!

    As you can see the week of the 11th to the 17th of May is openSUSE Week.  What’s so special about this week?  Well in a nutshell, the aim is to get all corners of the community together to focus on specific topics.  These topics range from wiki cleanup to packaging; testing certain features/functions to translation work; discussion with the openSUSE Board and almost anything inbetween.

    I’d like to suggest a couple of other items to the list (yes I know I need to add them to the wiki).  Both items are marketing related:

    1. Create good screencasts, ideally of each major component but I’m open to ideas.
    2. As requested by certain a11y users & proponents, close caption the video that we have (and the interviews I still need to upload).
    3. I know I said a couple but maths was never my strong point 😉 Try and do some video interviews that we can group under the “People Of openSUSE” banner.  I’ve already started this but mainly with Novell employees.  If community members are willing to help out, please let me know (it could even be you filming yourself without any need for video conferencing).

    So please make sure you come and join the fun, remember the openSUSE community wont succeed unless you join in.  We may even have the opportunity to have a soap box where you can voice your complaints and issues.  The important thing is the openSUSE Week is about you the community for you the community, to get something out of it you need to put something into it.  Lastly it’s all about having good old fashioned geeko fun!  So come along and join the fun 😀

    Tags:
    Posted in Events, Marketing | 2 Comments »

    User readable logging of YaST modules

    April 6th, 2009 by

    For quite some time, we had user requests (fate #100386) to provide the logging that would be readable to users (= not only YaST developers). Such logs should provide the information what certain YaST action is really doing to the system and exclude all the internal debug info our y2logs are full of.

    Martin and Stano created some concept and added new logging functions y2usernote and y2useritem. These log to the new log file, /var/log/YaST2/y2changes (or $HOME/.y2changes).

    The question which is still not resolved is how should we use these functions? Which events our modules produce should provide description as “note” and which should provide “items”? What level of complexity should be presented to user? Should we log the real actions, just like commands passed to system agent or rather the explanations of the actions taken? Or both?

    Let’s go to the example. The changes are already in FACTORY version of yast2-users packages (yast2-perl-bindings needed as well), so you may even try yourself.

    At first, I started logging actions done in Write function. I deleted one user and renamed another. See:

    2009-02-05 15:15:55 <item> rivendell User and Group Management module started
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell File written: ‘/etc/group’
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell User pre-deletion script called: ‘/usr/sbin/userdel-pre.local cc 1003 100 /local/home/cc’
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell File written: ‘/etc/passwd’
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell User ‘aa’ renamed to ‘bb’
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell Home directory moved: ‘/bin/mv /local/home/aa /local/home/bb’
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell File written: ‘/etc/shadow’
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell nscd cache invalidated: ‘/usr/sbin/nscd -i passwd’
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell nscd cache invalidated: ‘/usr/sbin/nscd -i group’
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell Group ‘dialout’ modified
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell Group ‘video’ modified
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell Home directory removed: ‘/bin/rm -rf /local/home/cc’
    2009-02-05 15:16:12 <note> rivendell User post-deletion script called: ‘/usr/sbin/userdel-post.local cc 1003 100 /local/home/cc’
    2009-02-05 15:16:13 <item> rivendell User and Group Management module finished

    Now, it is not bad, but the item “File written: ‘/etc/group'” doesn’t give much detailed info about what was done to that file. Stano proposed printing the diffs of the original and modified one, it could look this way:

    2009-02-09 10:05:50 <item> rivendell User and Group Management module started
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell Backup created: ‘/bin/cp /etc/group /etc/group.YaST2save’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell File written: ‘/etc/group’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell Comparing original and new version:
    — /etc/group.YaST2save    2009-02-09 11:05:49.000000000 +0100
    +++ /etc/group    2009-02-09 11:05:49.000000000 +0100
    @@ -8,3 +8,3 @@
    daemon:x:2:
    -dialout:x:16:bb,hh,linux,zz
    +dialout:x:16:aa,hh,linux
    disk:x:6:
    @@ -45,3 +45,3 @@
    vboxusers:!:113:jsuchome
    -video:x:33:bb,hh,linux,zz
    +video:x:33:aa,hh,linux
    wheel:x:10:
    `
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell User pre-deletion script called: ‘/usr/sbin/userdel-pre.local zz 1003 100 /local/home/zz’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell Backup created: ‘/bin/cp /etc/passwd /etc/passwd.YaST2save’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell File written: ‘/etc/passwd’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell Comparing original and new version:
    — /etc/passwd.YaST2save    2009-02-09 11:05:49.000000000 +0100
    +++ /etc/passwd    2009-02-09 11:05:49.000000000 +0100
    @@ -28,6 +28,5 @@
    wwwrun:x:30:8:WWW daemon apache:/var/lib/wwwrun:/bin/false
    -bb:x:1002:100:AAA:/local/home/bb:/bin/bash
    +aa:x:1002:100:AAA:/local/home/aa:/bin/bash
    hh:x:1000:100:hhh:/local/home/hh:/bin/bash
    linux:x:1001:100:linux:/local/home/linux:/bin/bash
    -zz:x:1003:100:zz:/local/home/zz:/bin/bash
    +::::::
    `
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell User ‘bb’ renamed to ‘aa’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell Home directory moved: ‘/bin/mv /local/home/bb /local/home/aa’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell Backup created: ‘/bin/cp /etc/shadow /etc/shadow.YaST2save’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell File written: ‘/etc/shadow’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell nscd cache invalidated: ‘/usr/sbin/nscd -i passwd’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell nscd cache invalidated: ‘/usr/sbin/nscd -i group’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell Group ‘dialout’ modified
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell Group ‘video’ modified
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell Home directory removed: ‘/bin/rm -rf /local/home/zz’
    2009-02-09 11:05:49 <note> rivendell User post-deletion script called: ‘/usr/sbin/userdel-post.local zz 1003 100 /local/home/zz’
    2009-02-09 11:05:50 <item> rivendell User and Group Management module finished

    Here, the user knows more about the real changes, but the log file is getting a bit less readable again… still I think I’d prefer it.

    You could see on examples that I don’t really use the advantage of having 2 logging functions. AFAIK Martin’s original proposal was to use items to tell what actions are we going to perform and notes to log the details of such action. This is hardly achievable in yast2-users module (may be better with
    others), since at the time of writing we don’t know the “user actions” taken, this is the info which is known when user is clicking in the UI (*). So another idea is to log directly when users is using UI and not at the time of write. See the last example (this is not a full log this time, just part of it):

    2009-02-06 15:54:02 <item> rivendell User and Group Management module started
    2009-02-06 15:54:11 <note> rivendell (UI info) User ‘bb’ removed from group ‘dialout’
    2009-02-06 15:54:11 <note> rivendell (UI info) User ‘aa’ added to group ‘dialout’
    2009-02-06 15:54:11 <note> rivendell (UI info) User ‘bb’ removed from group ‘video’
    2009-02-06 15:54:11 <note> rivendell (UI info) User ‘aa’ added to group ‘video’
    2009-02-06 15:54:11 <note> rivendell (UI info) User ‘bb’ renamed to ‘aa’
    2009-02-06 15:54:11 <item> rivendell (UI info) User modified: ‘aa’
    2009-02-06 16:03:10 <item> rivendell User and Group Management module finished

    I think the last method is getting more talkative and actually is not more helpful.

    So – comments? Proposals?

    (*) Actually it would need to be cached during the UI-clicking and logged at the time of writing only if user doesn’t cancel the actions.

    Tags:
    Posted in Systems Management, YaST | 7 Comments »

    New/updated Apps @ home:saigkill

    April 4th, 2009 by

    The following changes was in my home:saigkill Repo:

    dumb 0.9.3 (Dynamic Universal Music Bibiotheque)               NEW submitrequest to games:/
    kqlives 20080202 (Zelda like RPG)                                                  NEW submitrequest to games:/

    kde4-kblogger 1.0svn948858 (Blogging Client for KDE4)       NEW

    Tags: ,
    Posted in Build Service, lizards.openSUSE.org, Packaging | 1 Comment »

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