This year’s FOSDEM is just around the corner! (February 6th/7th, Brussels, Belgium)

A lot of interesting talks and presentations will take place and I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a lot of beer too! ^_^

Many Gentoo Developers will be there for the whole weekend, including me

See you all there

update 2009-11-07: fixed bug in script

uzbl has a simple but nice formfiller script that automatically fills forms for you.

if you’ve been using firefox’s password manager, you probably have a large list of user details you’d probably like to use in uzbl too. migrating the data is actually simpler than you think.

first, install the Password Exporter add-on in your firefox.

then go to edit->preferences->security->import/export passwords, click export passwords (do NOT check the checkbox), select csv in the bottom right select box and save the file in your ${HOME}.

you should now have a file called password-export-`date +%Y-%m-%d` (current date ) in your ~ folder.

now open a terminal and run the following:

cat ~/password-export-`date +%Y-%m-%d` | grep "^\"http" | while read i; do S=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f2`; S="${S/http:\/\/}"; S="${S/https:\/\/}"; U=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f4`; P=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f6`; UF=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f12`; PF=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f14`; echo $UF: $U | sed "s/\@/\\\@/g" > ~/.local/share/uzbl/forms/$S; echo $PF: $P | sed "s/\@/\\\@/g" >> ~/.local/share/uzbl/forms/$S; done

note that the above command will overwrite any existing domains.
the command below are slightly modified to only add non-existing domains:

cat ~/password-export-`date +%Y-%m-%d` | grep "^\"http" | while read i; do S=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f2`; S="${S/http:\/\/}"; S="${S/https:\/\/}"; U=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f4`; P=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f6`; UF=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f12`; PF=`echo $i | cut -d"\"" -f14`; echo $UF: $U | sed "s/\@/\\\@/g" >> ~/.local/share/uzbl/forms/$S; [[ ! -f ~/.local/share/uzbl/forms/$S ]] && echo $PF: $P | sed "s/\@/\\\@/g" >> ~/.local/share/uzbl/forms/$S; done

that’s it! you should have a file per domain with the necessary info in ~/.local/share/uzbl/forms

ls ~/.local/share/uzbl/forms/

open a uzbl instance, visit a site with a form and press zl [default binding] to tell formfiller to fill in the form for you

I’ve been using firefox for too long.

Its excellent vimperator extension has prevented me from switching to anything else, but it is beginning to show its age. Slow loading times, occasional crashes, horrible JS performance…

Meet uzbl. Wordplay for usable. Its developers describe it as web interface tools which adhere to the unix philosophy. I like to think of it as a terminal for the web.

I have valid reasons: Instead of using tabs, I just spawn uzbl windows whenever I need something, then close them. Same as a terminal. That is possible because it loads instantly – like a terminal! Add the fully customizable vim-like bindings and very good webkit engine and you have a winner!

The fact that I’m using awesome (a tiling wm) also helps, since it manages all the windows for me.

Since I like uzbl so much, I added it to the portage tree:

[I] www-client/uzbl
Available versions: (~)0_pre20091130{tbz2} **9999{tbz2} {helpers}
Installed versions: 0_pre20091130{tbz2}(04:03:14 PM 12/04/2009)(helpers)
Homepage: http://www.uzbl.org
Description: A keyboard controlled (modal vim-like bindings, or with modifierkeys) browser based on Webkit

One tagged release and a live ebuild (that uses either the master or experimental branch).

I’ve also patched dmenu with the vertical patch to make it useful with uzbl. You can find the updated ebuild in wirelay (layman -a wirelay) – at least until I get the dmenu maintainers to add the patch in portage.

Today we renamed kde-testing back to kde in layman. You should remove and add the overlay again:

layman -d kde-testing; layman -L; layman -a kde;

In other news,

Qt 4.6.0 final was released by Nokia yesterday. You’ll find ebuilds in portage’s ~testing. If you’re using stable and want to try it out, make sure you keyword ALL the ebuilds, or you might get ugly blocks A keyword file is available in qting-edge.

Upgrading world is the recommended way to go to avoid B blocks. If you don’t want to upgrade world, make sure your upgrade command includes all installed Qt modules or you will get blocks.

emerge -av1 $(qlist -IC x11-libs/qt\-)

Remember that “b” (lowercase b) blocks are automatically resolved by portage, just remove --pretend and proceed with the upgrade.

For those wondering, KDE 4 works fine with Qt 4.6

If you’re upgrading Qt from a previous version and your Qt apps misbehave, you should rebuild everything depending on Qt:

emerge -av1 $(for i in $(qlist -IC x11-libs/qt-); do equery -q d $i | grep -v 'x11-libs/qt-' | sed "s/^/=/"; done)

KDE 4.3.4 was also released yesterday, ebuilds are available in portage as usual

Lots of stuff to build, have fun!

So… qt-*-4.6.0_rc1 is now in the portage tree, masked (since its not a final release) and you can begin testing your shiny Qt applications with it.

But there’s a catch.

4.6.0_rc1 is not binary compatible with 4.6.0_beta1. [1]
This means that if you’re upgrading from 4.6.0_beta1 you have to rebuild every single app depending on qt-*, or they won’t start at all. This obviously includes all of KDE 4.

You can get portage to do that by using a command like this:
*update* it seems some shells didn’t like the old command, so I’ve updated it:

emerge -av1 $(for i in $(qlist -IC x11-libs/qt-); do equery -q d $i | grep -v 'x11-libs/qt-' | sed "s/^/=/"; done)

Note that this command assumes your system is up-to-date. If some installed packages don’t have ebuilds available for their version anymore, you’ll have to resolve that manually (probably by removing them and rerunning the command).

You’ll find equery in app-portage/gentoolkit and qlist in app-portage/portage-utils.

You don’t need to do this if you’re upgrading from Qt 4.5.3 (although you should). You’ll also be safe if you upgrade from 4.5.3 to 4.6.0 final when the time comes.

Portage will warn you about this when you upgrade qt-core to 4.6.0_rc1:

* Messages for package x11-libs/qt-core-4.6.0_rc1:

*
* Binary compatibility broke between 4.6.0_beta1 and 4.6.0_rc1.
* If you are upgrading from 4.6.0_beta1, you’ll have to
* re-emerge everything that depends on Qt.
* Use the following command:
*
* emerge -av1 $(for pkg in $(equery -q d \
* $(qlist -IC x11-libs/qt-) | grep -v “x11-libs/qt-” |
* sort -u); do echo “=$pkg”; done)
*
* YOU’VE BEEN WARNED
*

But users (my user side as well :p) tend to ignore ewarns from time to time

Happy rebuilding!

[1] http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2009/11/12/bc-break-in-46-against-previous-46/

As most of you know, KDE 3.5 is getting off the Gentoo train for various reasons mentioned elsewhere (in short: security, lack of upstream interest).

Some people are still using it though and they have been asking how they can keep it on their system, without emerge screaming each time they try to update world.

I’m writing this post to guide those people (you? ) on how they can achieve that.

1. Adding the kde-sunset overlay
Perhaps the most important thing you need to remember is that the ebuilds will be completely removed from the tree, so you need to add an overlay called kde-sunset to portage which contains a copy of most of them.

To add the overlay you need to have layman with git USE flag enabled:

USE="git" emerge -av layman

make sure you add the git USE flag in your package.use or make.conf

you can then use layman to install the overlay:

layman -f
layman -a kde-sunset

if this is your first time using layman, you’ll have to add the following line @ the end of your make.conf:

source /usr/local/portage/layman/make.conf

you can keep the overlay updated by running:

layman -s kde-sunset

2. KDE 3.5 is masked (this is necessary only while KDE 3.5 is still in tree)
Now we have the overlay, but until KDE 3.5 is completely wiped off the tree, there’s a mask to warn users about it.
Portage will scream about this mask each time you try to emerge so you need to unmask KDE 3.5 manually.

There are two (and a half) ways to do this:
a1) if your package.unmask is a folder, symlink the unmask file from kde-sunset to /etc/portage/package.unmask/

ln -s /usr/local/portage/layman/kde-sunset/Documentation/package.unmask/kde-3.5 /etc/portage/package.unmask/kde-3.5

a2) if your package.unmask is not a folder you can append the file (but you’ll have to update it manually)

cat /usr/local/portage/layman/kde-sunset/Documentation/package.unmask/kde-3.5 >> /etc/portage/package.unmask

b) if you don’t like all that, you can emerge autounmask

emerge -av autounmask

and ask it to unmask stuff for you – note that autounmask doesn’t like :slot and will only work with -version

autounmask kde-meta-3.5

3. I don’t want KDE 4 (yet)
So all is great now but portage wants to install KDE 4 when you emerge world.
This is happening because KDE 4 went stable recently and portage thinks you want to upgrade (you should btw ).
To fix this one we need to tell portage that we actually want the 3.5 version of KDE and we don’t care about 4.

we need to edit /var/lib/portage/world and add a version (or a slot) to every kde 3.5 app we have in there.

* be careful with this file *

for example, lets say that you installed kde 3.5 using the kde-meta ebuild.
if you open /var/lib/portage/world you’ll find a line saying

kde-base/kde-meta

you need to add :3.5 which is the 3.5 slot, or -3.5.10 which is the version (or both, version first) at the end. if you add the version, you’ll have to prepend a “=” as well.

the line should now read:

kde-base/kde-meta:3.5

do this for each KDE 3.5 app you have in the world file. If you’re unsure of the slot/version, use eix packagename to find it out.

4. All systems go

emerge -avDuN world

^^ this should now be clean of any KDE 4 traces and mask warnings

If you have any issues or are interested in maintaining kde-sunset, you may visit us over @ #gentoo-kde in freenode’s IRC network or drop us an email at kde _at_ gentoo _dot_ org. We’ll do our best to help you

Maybe after reading this post your KDE 3 installation will last a bit longer

Enjoy and see you w/ KDE 4 soon

Starting today, Greek Gentoo users have their own mailing list to discuss stuff and ask questions: gentoo-user-el.

For more info on how to subscribe, please visit http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml

The list is not mentioned there yet, but you can use it normally.

[the rest of this message is in greek]

Θέλετε να συζητήσετε για το αγαπημένο σας Gentoo στα ελληνικά αλλά δεν βρίσκετε κάποια official mailing list?

Πλέον μπορείτε να χρησιμοποιείτε την νέα λίστα gentoo-user-el, που δημιουργήθηκε για να καλύψει αυτό ακριβώς το κενό.

Για να γραφτείτε, αρκεί να στείλετε ένα κενό e-mail στην διεύθυνση gentoo-user-el+subscribe _at_ lists.gentoo.org και να ακολουθήσετε τις οδηγίες.

Μπορείτε να συνομιλήσετε με άλλους χρήστες του Gentoo αλλά και με Gentoo Developers (είμαστε 6 Έλληνες) και να λύσετε κάθε πρόβλημα και απορία σας

Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες σχετικά με τις λίστες του Gentoo μπορείτε να επισκευτείτε την σελίδα http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml

Η λίστα δεν αναφέρεται ακόμα σε αυτήν την σελίδα (πρέπει να ενημερωθεί από το κατάλληλο team), αλλά εσείς μπορείτε να γραφτείτε και να την χρησιμοποιήσετε κανονικά.

Επίσης μπορείτε να διαβάσετε το περιεχόμενο της λίστας πηγαίνοντας στην διεύθυνση http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user-el/

Όπως βλέπετε εγώ έκανα την αρχή: http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user-el/msg_4eb9364bded3280c9685356b9e0445d0.xml

Εάν είστε από αυτούς που προτιμούν πιο άμεση επικοινωνία, μπορείτε να επισκευτείτε το κανάλι #gentoo-el στο freenode irc network: http://java.freenode.net/index.php?channel=gentoo-el

Τα λέμε εκεί

KDE 4.3.3 was released on Tuesday, with ebuilds instantly available to users in the main tree.

We also have KDE 4.3.1 in stable \o/

KDE 3.5 is on its way out of portage, with kde-sunset being the overlay that will (hopefully) be maintained by users still interested in it.

Finally, KDE 4.4 Beta 1 is due December 1st and you’ll find it in the kde-testing overlay as usual

I got my Google Wave account invitation yesterday. After a few hours I actually found some people to talk to (this preview is still in its baby stages).

I have to say, I was impressed. You chat (and it updates) in real time. You can embed stuff like Google maps, Google searches and Youtube videos (and the list will surely improve since it seems to support Google gadgets). It really feels like next-gen email combined with a messenger

It is called a preview for a reason though. Sometimes you need to refresh the browser and at other times your waves go crazy and you can’t use them for a while. It also tends to eat up lots of CPU if you have a lot of participants and media content. But its Google, so we know its all going to be fixed really soon

Below you’ll find an embedded wave I’ve added using the Wavr Wordpress Plugin (you need to have a Wave Account).

Continue Reading »

Nokia switched their Qt git master to version 4.7 recently, creating a new branch for 4.6.

They also created two new branches, master-stable and 4.6-stable. Commits pushed to those branches are tested in Nokia’s testing farms, ensuring that they’ll always build.

The Gentoo Qt team provides various live Qt ebuilds in our official overlay, qting-edge [1]. These ebuilds now include x11-libs/qt-*-4.6.9999, building code from the 4.6 Qt branch, as well as a new USE flag called stable-branch, available (and enabled by default) in 4.6.9999 and 4.9999. This USE flag enables/disables the use of the stable branches, allowing you to choose between last-minute code VS tested, known to compile code.

Either way, its bleeding edge!

If you need help, leave a comment or visit us @ Freenode IRC, #gentoo-kde

[1] to install qting-edge, make sure you have layman installed and configured, then run layman -a qting-edge.