Planet OSCC

I received some feedback saying installing go-oo on their respective Fedora machines did not work as expected as outlined in my earlier post

By the way, the method also works on Centos and RHEL machines.

Well it seems that after a re-installation of Fedora, and added the YUM repo, I ran into an issue where only 2.4.1 version of go-oo was available. I resolved the issue by changing the "baseurl = " parameneter in /etc/yum.repos.d/GoOo.repo file with baseurl = http://ftp.kddilabs.jp/Linux/distributions/ftp.suse.com/projects/go-oo/stable/linux-x86/

The yum repo rpm points to a metalink i.e. it will redirect the downloader to one of its closest mirror. The repo I am using is in Japan, closest to Malaysia.

Also, if you intend to install Base, do install at least a JRE. I usually go for Sun's Java for maximum compatibility but the free and open Icedtea and OpenJDK seems to work as well.

To enable Java Runtime in a RHEL/Centos/Fedora/BLAG machine:

1. Download JRE or JDK from http://java.sun.com
2. Download the BIN file and not the RPM one (e.g. jdk-6u10-linux-i586.bin)
   
3. su and then copy the downloaded file to /opt
4. Change the file to executable by issuing chmod a+x jdk-6u10-linux-i586.bin
5. Extract the file by ./jdk-6u10-linux-i586.bin, you see the extracted directory as jdk1.6.0_10
   
6. Create the file /etc/profile.d/java.sh
7. Put in the following java.sh file
   
   export JAVA_HOME= /opt/jdk1.6.0_10
   export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
   
   
8. Exit and save the file
9. Change the file attribute to executable by chmod a+x /etc/profile.d/java.sh
10. Load it source /etc/profile.d/java.sh
11. To test it, type java -version and you should see something like:
    
    java version "1.6.0_10"
    Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_10-b33)
    Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 11.0-b15, mixed mode)
    
    
12. To enable Jav plugin for FIrefox :
    ln -s /opt/jdk_1.6.0_10/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
    

The expresskeys utility doesn't work, but xsetwacom commands do. What I found interesting was that with lots of Googling, lots of blogs/commands showing how to assign the expresskeys but not how the buttons are physically mapped. So here it is:

You can now assign your favorite key (or key combinations) to each button. eg.

xsetwacom set pad Button3 "core key CTRL"
xsetwacom set pad StripRUp "core key -"

You can also do this graphically through the rather ugly tcl wacomcpl application.

More information from the linuxwacom project website and also this blog by gergap.

I should probably edit the ubuntu community wiki page and find time to help write a preference app for Gnome.

When one thinks of Fedora, the GNOME desktop comes to mind. Well, RH/Fedora is known as a "GNOME distro". I was piqued by the many talks of the improvements of the KDE version of Fedora 10. I was an exclusively KDE user until I switched to Ubuntu about 2 years back.

I downloaded the KDE version three days after F10 was released from a mirror in Japan. Initially I installed the GNOME version on my trusty Compaq nc2400 lappy (Intel Core Duo 1200, 2GB RAM, 945i Graphics etc) and everything was ok.....until I wanted to burn CDs. No matter what what burner (Brasero, XCDRoast, Gnomebaker) I used, they all reported that there was some issue with my SCSI connector. Got me panic a bit. Has my driver finally gave up its ghost?

Fedora is known to be a stickler to upstream code, meaning they will either not or add VERY little stuff to upstream binaries or code (unless it is a bug and then they will contribute upstream). So you basically get the stock binaries, with bugs and worts and all.

So, I burned a copy of the KDE version, installed it and used the venerable k3b to burn a copy of a DVD iso. It worked! Yay saved me RM350!

The KDE version came with version 4.1.3. Since I do a lot of media files, next I downloaded the RPM Fusion repo rpm. RPM Fusion combined the livna, Freshrpms and Dribble repositories. Now the number of packages made available for Fedora is increased. Interoperability and usability issues of using mixed repos of the past are now gone.

Next I removed the useless Abiword (to me at least), KDE PIM and Transmission BitTorrent client. I added and installed the go-oo variant of OpenOffice.org, Thunderbird and all "restricted" codecs. All worked well.

KDE 4.1.3 is in a word beautiful. The Folder View widgets are just cool. I no longer need to go to the File Manager just to look at my directory contents. I created two just to make things easier for me.

Amarok is one of the things I sorely missed when I was using GNOME. I did install it but somehow it looked out of place with all the other GNOME apps. Amarok 1.94 is included, there is a nice facelift to it and it somehow feels smoother on the eyes.

Firefox is still as ugly as ever running on KDE 4x. The much talked about scrollbar fix did nothing much to beautify it. I use a lot of Gmail and it is just bad. The left screen shot shows that the check boxes are just rendered wrong on Firefox. I get much better rendering on Opera. But since I use Firegpg to sign my mails, I still have to use Firefox. Ditto for Thunderbird in the ugliness department.

Konqueror, installed as the default web browser, is pretty much useless on most websites I care about (e.g. Gmail).

I did install the qt-gtk libraries thingy and there was an option in KDE Systems Settings for setting up GTK apps to run on KDE, but it did not help.

While I can understand the issues involved in beautifying a GTK app in KDE 4.x a beginner will sneer at this and dump it cussing that Linux is just plain ugly.

The slab start menu will get some getting used to. It is not necessary a bad design, it's kinda nice once you get the hang of it.

One of the promises of the KDE 4.x desktop is that you can add tons of cute widgets on the desktop. I communicate with many people from different time zones and in GNOME I can add world time easily via the time and date applet. Appreciating that KDE IS NOT GNOME, well I just thought I add a few more digital time widgets on the desktop, each reflecting different time zones. Sadly, it seems that crashes the desktop everytime I log off and/or restart the computer. I always get a SIGNINT error. When I re-login all the digital timers seem to like each other so much that they decided to group together and go on top of each other on the upper left hand corner. So much for the usability of the KDE 4.x desktop.

On the other hand it seems to work if I add the digital clock widgets on the Task Bar.

Kopete was for a long time a favourite IM client of mine. Of late however it just refuses to work i.e. I keyed in the right username and password but kept getting rejected by the remote server. I use YM a lot and it seems to work intermittently. That was an issue when I tried KDE 4.0x Beta. I thought they would have solved it by now. My co-workers running Pidgin have no such issues.

The Konversation IRC client is nice. In fact it seems to work better than my trusty xchat. It seems to be faster than xchat as well. This is definitely the bright light of my whole experience with KDE 4x.

In a nutshell, KDE 4 is definitely not ready for use. There are just too many issues with it. I recommend to ignore any iterations of KDE until it hits version 4.2.

However, if you do want to use KDE I will recommend OpenSUSE and Mandriva, both "kings of KDE" or so to speak.

I understand and appreciate the work the Fedora KDE SIGers put in but at this point, it is just simply "half-cooked"; it won't kill you but will give you some discomfort if you decide to eat it.

ini pula cerita tentang hosmet saya dan MY PINK LAUNDRY BASKET.. saya sangat terharu dan rasa sangat bertuah... hosmet saya sangat baik hati.. selalu basuhkan baju saya yg kadang2 membuak2 dr laundry basket saya mcm lava gunung berapi...huhu.. pastu hosmet lg sorang suka lipat kain baju saya.. ya Allah ya Tuhan ku.. tak taulah nk cakap camana.. betapa bertuahnya saya..nak nak saya ni mmg jenis xlekat duk umah...ahakss... saya nak kena belanja diorang makan 1 day ni..makan besar yg baekk punye.. derang dah byk tolong saya, SELALU lak tuh..

mcm semalam contohnya, balik dr Melaka leteh2 tuh..tgk dapur umah kemas giller.. laundry basket saya kosong!! KOSONG ye rakan2.. xde secebis kain pun.. derang dah cucikan.. my goodness.. Thanks sgt2 hosmet ku.. Sila jangan pindah ye...hehehe... oleh itu saya berazam nak amik cuti 1 hari mengemas ruang tamu umah saya plak bg membalas jasa2 me reka.. :) tp all in all, saya sgt terharu.. derang sgt baik.. Thank you Allah for giving me such nice wonderful kind housemates!! :)

ayyyoo...perempuan dan shopping mmg xdpt dipisahkan...mcm lagu tema citer Cinderella yg Ahmad Idham dgn Haliza Misbun tu la..ahaks.. "kita memang dijodohkan bersama..sehati serta sejiwa.." hehe.. kalau xdpt shopping, window shopping pun okla..asalkan dpt gune jugak perkataan shopping...

oleh kerana kami perempuan, kami jugak suke shopping.. oleh kerana suke shopping, kami telah tersasar dr plan awal..ahaks..patutnye jumaat tu dr opis direct je ke Puteri Resort, Ayer Keroh.. Tapi sbb si zizi ni tertinggal sport shoes, tersasar ke Jusco Melaka...mula2 bukan main ingatkan diri masing2 (aku dgn salwa laa) "kite ni teman zizi je..jangan beli ape2"... sekali...hmmmm.. mak datuk...aku telah TERBELI 2 helai track bottom, 1 pasang sport shoes kaler PINK, sehelai shirt keje, dan satu slack..!! haaa..amik ko!! lupe donia once jumpa JUSCO.. aku mmg hantu JUSCO.. skrg point dah dkt 5K.. hahaha.. abih gaklah barang seratus dua.. adoi adoi..

pastu dah terleka shopping, x sedor diri, lupo donia..dah dkt pukul 8.00...ish korang... bengkel start 8.30 weyy.. cpt2 tapau McD pastu rushing ke resort..seb baik sempat 8.30 duk dlm bengkel.. huhu.. kalu dah perempuan, perempuan jugak.. nafsu oo nafsu.. hehe...

gambar2 kejohanan bowling PG disini ye..

gambar2 MELAKA di sini yee....

Somebody help me with this please!

I knew I had to finish up some stuff this weekend but I kept on delaying it until the last minute, this very wee hour. You know what I did the whole weekend? Friday night, I was out with family. Saturday, the whole day I spent watching tv - you don’t know how tv-deprived I was. Saturday nite, I can’t remember what I did actually. On Sunday, I woke up really late doing stuff I don’t remember what the night before. I didn’t go straight to work, instead I went cleaning up my room, rearranged and refolding clothes, took a long shower (my heater is broken! isk), watched some more tv, watched some dvd’s, well until it was 11. I went to play games after that (that expert level on Majesty rox). Made some coffee, grilled some fish, downloaded some music, then only I started looking at the work I was supposed to do. It was 2am.

Why did I procastinate?

On a side note, have to work on FOSSchix.my soon. I don’t think any meeting can be held before that FOSS meetup. So sad, there’s something coming up on 3 - 5 Dec. Damn you government for holding so many events and what’s that star rating.

Just came back from some hi-tech grocery shopping.

It's the parts for my new development and graphics workstation.

• AMDx2 5200
• Asus m3a78-cm motherboard amd790 chipset
• Antec P182 case
• Corsair HX620 power supply (very quiet and modular cables put in only what you need)
• 4gb ddr-800 memory
• 2x500GB seagate drives (as RAID-1)
• DVDRW Pioneer

The casing had to be ordered in though, so I'll have to assemble it on Monday evening at the earliest.

What I can use though is my latest accessory, a new Intuos 6x8 tablet. I've been wanting one of these since I was in primary school.

It's plug and play but only the stylus with pressure/tilt. At this stage I haven't configured those yet. This would make it hard to use though, you want access to the touch strips for common operations, palettes etc. without having to use the keyboard.

These work, but requires xorg.conf tweaking:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wacom

Out of the box, I could get this:

I'm going to start enjoying doing design work again, that I was planning to get back to earlier this year.

Yea, last time was at my former workplace - when we had to travel the previous day. By late, I mean really late like 12pm onwards. Ganee would allow use to come in late usually because the travels practically took the whole day. Another reason was because we only got to be back home for a weekend or so before flying back to Brunei. He was letting us spending time with family I guess.

There was one time when we had to stay back for CIMB up until 2am or something. It was nice to see “You can come in by 10 tomorrow” on my phone that night. Also there was a time when I didn’t sleep for 3 days for some major bugs fixing/feature requests but still had to go to work. Of course I didn’t look so well that day and he noticed it. After making asking around the office, he found out why and let me go off early at 3pm.

Come to think about it, if I were to stay awake for some work at my current workplace I don’t think I would do it though. There’s no kind of that flexibility here so why would I want torture myself. Besides, being appreciative is not what they are - on the contrary, they like to take the credits away from you. Sadly, this is how the government works. Why would I lament on this I don’t know. It’s not going to change soon anyway no matter how much I talk about it.

A little appreciation goes a long long way. For me, if I know my work is being recognized I would happily volunteer if there’s a need to stay back. I knew Ganee was observant enough to know the effort I put in that time so I didn’t mind to spend more time on it to get it done. I knew it would be reflected in the bonus. They bought me cakes on my birthday, they treated us to TGI after projects had been completed, they got us to Redang for 3D/2N holiday, the pantry always stocked up with food and we had PS2 to relax in between stresses. 3 days with no sleep? I didn’t mind at all.

Hey I love my job, it’s really easy to make me go the extra mile - be flexible, give laptops/dual screens and treat me like a human being.

OSCC people are really cool, seriously. But MAMPU really is killing us. Usually we would come on top which I believe came from the strength we all share - we know what we do and we respect each other. Yes we have our flaws but let’s not be negative now. We have just won AIPA for MyMeeting, the mood should be happy - other than that, really don’t know what to say on this. I should be happy but then again, for something to win an AIPA, it should be something more. Anyway, they were so happy today that they took pictures among themselves with the trophies they forgot the team who developed it in the first place. I wonder where that RM10k money prize will go. It is definitely interesting to watch and I suspect it would make a good bitching post next time.

Strace is a tool in linux used for tracing system call and signals. This is very useful for tracking the error occurred when a program is run and we do not have any clue where to start troubleshooting. The usage of strace is very simple. It will record the system calls that happen during the execution of a particular program.

To use strace (below is an example if you want to trace the system call when you run ls):
# strace ls

To use strace and print the output to file
# strace -o outputfile ls

After that, you can analyze the outputfile, to see where is the error that fails the program

Once you've got everything organized, it can also be quite stressful when you know you have to do something, but just don't have the energy to do it. It's easy to fall into the trap for example, of flying through emails during your high energy time, and then feeling tired when you need to work on the server and accidentally running rm -rf / while root, or staring blankly at code on the screen cause you can't concentrate. Running sentence, you can tell which energy level state I'm in.

So a good tip in the morning, when organizing your day, is to also schedule things based on your energy levels. Some of us are morning folks, some afternoon and others love to burn the midnight all. The diagram is a map of my daily energy levels and what tasks I try to do during periods of high and low energy.

Emails for example, I usually leave until late afternoon. Chances are I've done the critical things in the morning already during my high energy levels.

You can do other small menial jobs (that still need to be done) such as typing in business cards, organizing desktop, going out to do some banking/posting etc. during your low energy time. Other ideas include reading magazines, mailing lists etc. to keep up to date. This way you can be more productive, even when you're feeling tired.

Go-oo is an "enhanced" version of the stock Openoffice.org suite from Sun Microsystems. I blogged about the differences a little while back.

To install go-oo on Fedora 9 and 10, as root do the following:

1. Make sure your current version of OO.o is removed, to avoid any conflicts.
   
2. Download and install this RPM http://go-oo.mirrorbrain.org/stable/linux-i586/GoOo-release-0.0.3-0.noarch.rpm
3. For Fedora 9, edit your /etc/yum.repo.d/fedora.repo and /etc/yum.repo.d/fedora-updates-newkey.repo files, then add this statement exclude= openoffice* at the bottom of [fedora] and [updates-newkey] sections repectively.
4. For Fedora 10, edit your /etc/yum.repo.d/fedora.repo and /etc/yum.repo.d/fedora-updates.repo files, then add the statement exclude= openoffice* at the bottom of [fedora] and [updates] sections repectively.
5. yum install openoffice.org3 openoffice.org3.0-redhat-menus* openoffice.org3-writer* openoffice.org3-calc* openoffice.org3-impress* openoffice.org3-base* openoffice.org3-base* openoffice.org3-en-US*

Note : Due to some reason openoffice.org3-en-US* is required for starting up go-oo. A patch is in the works. If you are like me uses British English, you may add openoffice.org3-en-GB* to the list. Also I tested this on a 32-bit machine, so I am unsure whether the procedure for 64-bit is exactly the same as above.

Log off and on. And the items should appear in the menu, else reboot.

**.......***

ahahah..taktau nak buat tajuk ape...xtually lame sgt da rasenya tak merapu..lepas je balik dari sh alam aritu..langsung aku tak sempat nak update blog...nak di jadikan cerita...sebelum aku bertolak pi sh alam 19 hb aritu...aku pi la godeh2 sistem aku untuk kali terakhir...yela..takut tu nak present..

ntah macam mane tibe-tibe je tergerak hati nak tukar password utk database..aku pon tuka la..then bile aku bukak balik..akunye database da takleh nak acces...time tu tak dapat bygkan r macammana pucatnye n serabutnye pale otak aku..aduh..rungsing sgt

aku punye la cr jln penyelesaian sampai tertidur-tidur..last-last aku pasrah...pi nek erl..n amik komuter sampai sh alam..area kol 10 aku da smpai...lepak2 blik dak wani (die tak blk sbb pi sukan asea..canggih sep..)

then aku lepak2 n pi le fakulti dlm kol 1.30...aku da tade hati nak recover balik database tu...da tu..ujan lak tu..abis r baju aku bsh sbb dr bas stop pi fac aku tu kene gak berlari-lari anak+ngn beg yg berat...

time ujan lebat..kilat sambung menyambung...guruh berdentum...aku pon buat persediaan nak present..nta ape untungnya aku..sebab ujan lebat..juri yang nak tanda aku nye presentation tu 2 org je...aku pon tersenyum lega..n kwn aku pesan...slagi die tak tnye psl database...aku jgn ngengade kantoikn diri sendiri

aku pon buat r muke confident...(nasib r sistem jln...) n...aku berjaya akhirnya..ahahah...20/11 ade lak exibition tok project..tapi tak risau sgt..sbb da setel present..so aku+clique2 aku pi r lepak kat ANDAMAN syeksen 24...

aku ni mmg crewet cket bab mkn..tpi kat kdai tu..wlpon makck amik order tu tulis je pe yg aku+kwn2 aku ckp(wlpn dlm perbincgn)..service dia cepat..murah dan sedaaaaaaaap....

memula kiteorg plik gak..sjak ble lak order udang grg tepung+ayam cendwn..rupe2nye time ordr tu ade le si tepet ni sebut udang tu..ahahah..tak sedar pon..pdhl order tu dibuat oleh aku n sara....tapi kiteorg telan gak (kecuali sara yg tak abiz mkn)

peah tak ikot lak kali ni sbb ade hal..so aku bercdg nk pi mkn2 lagi ngn dieorg mggu ni..+anta report last...kali ni nak open table utk bln 10..so kirenya bln ni pdt tu..

aku br je dpt msg dr zack..ckp die pon trn skali..tapi aku konfius lak..die nak pi diner yg mane???

Beginilah alkisah perbualan opismate C bersama ku waktu makan Nando's semalam...

tibe2 aje..muncul ayat2 itu... ahakss...

opismate C : peri-peri ni pedas kan... asal dr Portugal kan?

Jaja : ha ah..ngape..? (aku sabar menunggu tujuan asal soalan...)

opismate C : maknenye org Portugis suke pedas la kan?

Jaja : yela kot...kenapa? (masih sabar menunggu...)

opismate C : maknenye Ronaldo tu suke pedasla kan??

Jaja : (laaa...ini ke die nak tanye..hahahah) yelah kot... hehe.. (manelah akak tau deq non oii... akak xjage ronaldo..tp lawakla kalu die suke pedas...heheheh...)

hahahah....itu sebenarnya maksud tersirat, hajat di hati opismate C saya ini... sungguh panjang mukadimahnye.. sangat puitis seperti 'putus sandang'...ahakss...

Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes. In short, you can have a few virtual terminal by using only one physical terminal. Screen is useful when you are accessing servers remotely, or running jobs on the background. When you want to run jobs on the background, it is very useful to run it inside one screen so that you can detached it, and simply log out without worry. Below are a few useful command to be used with screen to get you started.

To start using screen
# screen

To start using screen with sessionname
# screen -S sessionname

To list out all available screen
# screen -ls

To attach to a detached screen
# screen -r

To attach to a detached screen with certain pid
# screen -r pidnumber

To attach to a non detached screen session (multi display mode). Using this mode, you can make other people see what you are doing on your screen
# screen -x

When inside screen:

To kill current screen
ctrl-a k

To detach current screen
ctrl-a d

You cannot use the scroll function when inside screen. To scroll, you have to use screen's copy mode, then you can scroll up or down using your arrow key, pageup and pageup. To exit copy mode, press 'Esc'. To enter copy mode:
ctrl-a [
or
ctrl-a Esc

To monitor terminal for activity (start or stop)
ctrl-a M

To monitor terminal for 30-seconds silence (start or stop)
ctrl-a _

Give name to the terminal
ctrl-a shift-a

View all opened screen (interactive)
ctrl-a "

View all opened screen (non-interactive)
ctrl-a w

Move to the next screen
ctrl-a n

Move to the previous screen
ctrl-a p

Move to screen number
ctrl-a N where N is the number of the screen

Lock screen
ctrl-a x

Kill all windows and terminate screen
ctrl-a \

View help for screen
ctrl-a ?

Just got hold of a Garmin Nuvi GPS set. I downloaded the malsing files via usb to Kubuntu 8.10 laptop.

Some software being tested:

1. gpsbabel - text based and its too difficult to use as there is not much documentation.
   
2. josm - Java based and took so long to load. Uses the gpsbabel engine to generate maps.
   
3. qlandkarte 0.7.3 (keeps crashing when I load a map and GPX) - Can view the maps on Linux
   

Fedora 10, is available now. Download the livecd iso here. For those who are upgrading from fedora 9, check out the guide here. For more info, go here. Enjoy