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]

Οι έλληνες χρήστες του Gentoo έχουν πλέον την δική τους mailing list όπου μπορούν να συζητούν για το Gentoo: gentoo-user-el.

Βοηθήστε ο ένας τον άλλο ή ζητήστε βοήθεια από τους έλληνες Gentoo Developers!

Για να γραφτείτε, στείλτε ένα άδειο μήνυμα στην διεύθυνση gentoo-user-el+subscribe _at_ lists.gentoo.org,

Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες σχετικά με τις mailing λίστες του Gentoo πηγαίνετε εδώ: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml

Για να διαβάσετε παλαιότερες συζητήσεις της λίστας, πηγαίνετε εδώ: http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user-el/

Το πρώτο μας μήνυμα: http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-user-el/msg_4eb9364bded3280c9685356b9e0445d0.xml

Εαν προτιμάτε πιο άμεση επικοινωνία, μπορείτε να μας βρείτε στο freenode irc network: http://java.freenode.net/index.php?channel=gentoo-el

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.

UPDATE: 4.3.1 is now unmasked for amd64/x86 and the masking issue has been fixed by jmbsvicetto, so we won’t have this issue again in the future! The post below is updated to reflect on it.

The first bugfix release for KDE 4.3, 4.3.1, is now available.

You can read about the improvements it brings here.

Ebuilds for KDE 4.3.1 are already available in gentoo for architectures amd64 and x86.

To upgrade from 4.3.0 you simply need to

emerge --sync
emerge -avDuN world

This should be a straightforward update for most people.

If you’re upgrading from an older KDE 4 version (or clean-installing KDE 4 on a stable system) you should keyword-unmask KDE 4.3 by following this post’s instructions. You’ll also find some troubleshooting hints there.

The ebuilds are hard.masked for all other architectures due to bug 280312.

As usual, if you have any issues, feel free to leave a comment or visit us @ IRC: freenode/#gentoo-kde

KDE 4.3 has arrived

Lots of behind-the-scenes fixes, a new pretty (debatable) default plasma theme and various new stuff across the board make kde 4.3 an exciting release!

Gentoo ebuilds were available the moment tarballs were released, thanks to the hard work of our Gentoo KDE team

However, since 4.3 brings some new packages (and dependencies), we’ve hard masked the ebuilds until everything gets the proper keywords.
You can follow the keywording progress in bug 280312.

Instructions on how to unmask kde 4.3 after the screenshot

unmasking & installing kde 4.3
kde 4.3 might be masked but it works fine on x86 and amd64 (for other archs check the bug above).
to install it, you can easily unmask it using the unmask file provided in the kde-testing overlay, [kde-testing]/Documentation/package.unmask/kde-4.3

if you don’t have / don’t want the overlay, you can grab the file here.

you can also use a command similar to

# unmasking kde 4.3
wget -O /etc/portage/package.unmask/kde-4.3 'http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/kde.git;a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/package.unmask/kde-4.3'

to automatically save the unmask file to your unmask folder (if you use folders)

for those using stable gentoo, there’s a similar keywords file

# adding kde 4.3 in package.keywords/
wget -O /etc/portage/package.keywords/kde-4.3 'http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/kde.git;a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/package.keywords/kde-4.3.keywords'

troubleshooting
if you’re trying to upgrade from kde 4.2, but portage gives you nice little blocks, there are a few things you can check:

• make sure you’ve synced the tree and kde-testing overlay (if using it) :p
• make sure the unmask/keyword files are correct and up-to-date
• check that you don’t have any 4.2 versioned kde-base/* items in /var/lib/portage/world
• check that you don’t have any 4.2 versioned sets in /var/lib/portage/world_sets
• emerge -avDuN world — you’ll probably get some messy output but all blocks should be automatically resolved

if you hit any issues feel free to leave a comment, check the gentoo kde 4 guide (should be up-to-date soon) or visit us @ #gentoo-kde (freenode).

enjoy your shiny new kde!

Yes, I finally became a Gentoo Developer

UPDATE: All <qt-*-4.5.3:4 ebuilds were removed on Nov 11th, 2009, so this problem is now fixed

So…… you’re trying to emerge kde 4 on your fresh ~ gentoo installation but strange blocks show up… stuff like

[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.5.1-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.5.1-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1-r2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1)
[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-webkit-4.5.1-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-webkit-4.5.1-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1-r2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1)
[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-svg-4.5.1-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-svg-4.5.1-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1-r2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1)
[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1-r2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1)
[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.5.1-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.5.1-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1-r2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1)
[blocks B ]
[blocks B ] x11-libs/qt-sql-4.5.1-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-sql-4.5.1-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1-r2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1)
[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-script-4.5.1-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-script-4.5.1-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1-r2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1)
[blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-test-4.5.1-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-test-4.5.1-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1-r2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1)

All this is happening because of recent changes to gentoo’s Qt ebuilds. In Qt Team’s last meeting it was decided to make most USE flags disabled by default, to allow the user to choose which ones he wants to enable, rather than disable.

However, in portage’s current state, the stable Qt packages (4.5.1 version) use the old USE flags with lots of them enabled by default.

Now comes the tricky part. KDE depends on qt-gui with dbus USE flag enabled. Normally, when portage sees that dependency, it checks your USE flags. If dbus is enabled, all is good. If not, it breaks with an error telling you to enable it.

In reality this never happens. Portage first checks qt-gui-4.5.2, which doesn’t have dbus enabled by default. No go. But wait, qt-gui-4.5.1 has it enabled and portage falls back to it. So now portage tries to mix all the other qt-*-4.5.2 packages with qt-gui-4.5.1 (and its 4.5.1 dependencies) and as I’ve mentioned before, this is not allowed.

Boom, blockers.

SOLUTION

Ok maybe you didn’t feel like reading all of the above, so I’ve titled this so you can find it easily

The solution to this problem is suprizingly easy.

Add “dbus” and “qt3support” to your make.conf USE (dbus can also go in package.keywords for qt-gui).

OR

Switch to the Desktop Profile.

Its that easy (thankfully)

WHY DID IT HAVE TO BREAK?

Thats a good question. The real reason this broke is because the stable version has +dbus (which we can’t change now cause its stable – too much hassle) and the testing version has -dbus (which is better since the idea is you get a package and “add” to it with USE flags). Since the Qt Team decided to go through with this change and Portage falls back to the older version without a warning, there’s nothing we can do about this, at least until a new Qt version goes stable with -dbus or portage’s behavior changes.

Thats all folks =] Questions welcome in the comment system below

As you most probably noticed already, I’ve changed my blog’s theme

I really really really wanted a variable-width theme and something I will be able to call my own.

So I picked this nice clean theme (made by openark.org) and I’m going to build on it over time until I’m satisfied Hopefully you people will find it readable and easy to navigate

While we’re on the themes topic, today I added the WPtouch module that provides native-like navigation to my blog from iPhones. I discovered this pretty good plugin after navigating to www.elkosmas.gr with my iPhone

Now that I have my own blog space (and google is crippling my googlepages account), I think its time to use this space as the homepage for my Clear Fields firefox extension.
So, from now on. this blog category, “clear fields” will host all news related to my extension