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

I just updated my Clear Fields extension to support Firefox 3.5. It should be available shortly.

if you don’t feel like waiting, click the following link to download it then drag the downloaded file in your firefox window:

clearfields 3.0.2 with support for firefox 3.5

A lot of updates are still pending for my extension… I really need to find some time to implement them. Thanks to anyone who “reminded” me I had to update this

Clear Fields in Mozilla Addons (up-to-date \o/)

So… you’re trying to merge a package but get weird blockers like

[blocks B     ]  >x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999 (“>x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999″ is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2,
x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2,
x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2)

[blocks B     ]    <x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1 (“<x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1″ is blocking x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.5.1, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.5.1-r1, x11-libs/qt-script-4.5.1,
x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1, x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.5.1, x11-libs/qt-test-4.5.1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.5.1, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.5.1, x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1)

this means that new Qt libraries are available and portage is trying to upgrade only *a part* of the ones you have installed.

this is bad because mixed versions of Qt packages (like qt-core-4.5.1 alongside qt-svg-4.4.2) can result in unexpected breakage.

unfortunately, at the moment this error is the only way we can prevent version mixing.

to get past the error, you can:

• emerge -avDuN world
  • updating world tells portage to upgrade all Qt packages in one run
• emerge -av1 `eix -I --only-names x11-libs/qt-`
  • if you don’t want to upgrade everything, you can use this command to upgrade all the installed Qt libraries

if you still have problems, don’t hesitate to comment and I’ll do my best to help

KDE 4.2.4 showed up in kde’s ftp server (and various mirrors) today

Now available in Gentoo’s kde-testing overlay, soon in tree as usual!

update: in cvs tree

a new rc version of awesome, 3.3 rc3, has been released. lots of bugfixes and it also feels faster

I’ve created an ebuild based on the one in portage.

You can find it in my overlay, wirelay, masked.

for instructions on how to add wirelay to layman, check the Documentation in the overlay or this post:

http://www.linuxized.com/2009/04/private-overlay-eyes-only/

Unfortunately this version requires stuff not in the main portage tree, so you’ll have to add the “x11″ overlay

layman -a x11

I’ve also opened a bug in Gentoo’s bugtracker with the ebuild:

bug #270794 [ebuild] awesome-3.3_rc3

Lots of config changes in this version, so in my upcoming awesome+conky how-to I’ll give you two seperate config files =]

awesome 3.3_rc3 with conky-updated panels

Willikins, the smart bot in freenode that knows everything about Gentoo, Life and the Universe, is now officially slacking in freenode/#gentoo-el

Many thanks to hwoarang for sending out the request! wooooot =]

Comzeradd posted a great article recently on how to speed up firefox by moving your ~/.mozilla folder on a tmpfs mount.

As you probably know, firefox keeps track of everything you visit while you browse the web infinity, then allows you to quick-search that history just by typing in its awesome bar –err, address bar

Unfortunately, after a while the whole thing slows down and gets a bit annoying. So what Comzeradd tried was to move ~/.mozilla (which includes the history database) on a tmpfs mount.

The difference is staggering! Searches are snappy again and even firefox itself feels faster!

Comzeradd offers a script that syncs your tmpfs ~/.mozilla with a folder on your hdd to make sure you won’t lose your data on reboot/shutdown/powerfail.

I took this a step further by creating a firefox wrapper script. After you move your ~/.mozilla folder to a safe place, this script makes sure that your data is always synced between the tmpfs folder and your hdd folder on a fixed interval.

what the script does, in steps:

1. check that we don’t have any stale ~/.mozilla folder
2. rsync our hdd copy of .mozilla with our tmpfs
3. launch a background process that syncs any changes on the tmpfs .mozilla folder back to our hdd copy every one minute (adjustable)
4. launch firefox
5. when firefox ends, kill background process and sync back to the hdd one last time

To use the script, you’ll first need to mount tmpfs to a folder. On my laptop I have my /var/tmp as tmpfs (useful for gentoo emerges too). To make /var/tmp a tmpfs folder, you need to edit your /etc/fstab file and add the following line:

tmpfs              /var/tmp    tmpfs  size=768M,mode=0777         0 0

You should adjust the size= option based on the ram you have available.

Then just mount the “partition” with:

mount /var/tmp

and execute the script

chmod +x speedfox

speedfox

Thats it! This simple process gives firefox a real boost!

If you start speedfox from a terminal, you can see the rsync info at the beginning and after each minute =]

You can get the script here.

Don’t forget to edit it, read the instructions and configure its variables!

An excellent Gentoo Presentation by Tampakrap and Comzeradd followed our Saturday’s Gentoo installation workshop on Sunday, marking the second and last day of this year’s Fosscomm.

Thanks are in order for all those great guys and gals who made this weekend special, the “ATEI of Larisa Linux Team” =]

Everything was well organized and planned out (ok, those pigeons were added value, but you have to admit they were funny :p) and I am sure everyone had a great time. I certainly did

A lot of pictures are now available from both days for your viewing pleasure. View them in picasa or click the photo on the left

Don’t forget to tag yourself so other people can find you

update: I have uploaded the full resolution JPEGs in ftp://linuxteam.cs.teilar.gr/fosscomm/wired_linuxized.com/ for your viewing (and printing) pleasure.

The first fosscomm day (in ATEI of Larisa) is over with great success

We (the gentoo team) hosted a workshop showing off gentoo’s installation process and portage features using the gentoo handbook as a guide. Time was limited and we didn’t manage to finish it, but I think we touched some people when we explained how portage and its USE flags work

Next up is a Gentoo presentation tomorrow. Comzeradd and Tampakrap will present the Gentoo Project, analyze its advantages and disadvantages and show off how easy it is to create an ebuild for a new package, or add a patch to an existing one

Videos from fosscomm’s presentations and workshops will be available shorty and I’ve also taken some pictures which I will upload tomorrow =]