October 2009 - Arch-general - lists.archlinux.org

[arch-general] Installing Arch Linux w/ RAID
by Carlos Williams 09 Dec '09

09 Dec '09

I have been struggling with successfully installing Arch Linux on my PC with just two S-ATA drives. I am using the LiveCD / Netinst "2009.08". The only partition I want for RAID is simply /home. I have two identical disks and am partition as follows: /dev/sda1 = 2048 (bootable) */boot* /dev/sda2 = 40960 */* /dev/sda3 = 102400 *RAID* /dev/sdb1 = 2048 *Swap* /dev/sdb2 = 40960 */var* /dev/sdb3 = 102400 *RAID* Then I create the RAID after I run "cfdisk" utility: mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda3 /dev/sdb3 Once that is done, I run "/arch/setup command from the comand prompt and enter the system installer as normal. I have simply already created my disks, all I do from the installer now is assign a file system and mount point. It recognizes the RAID /dev/md0 partition I created using mdadm utility. Everything is fine but when I install Grub on /dev/sda and reboot the machine, I always fail to boot. I get some strange error that tells me to type "Control-D" for maintenance mode or something like that. If I do everything like I did above but don't create a RAID partition, Arch installs perfect! What am I doing wrong? The Arch Wiki is not helping me at all. I have spent a week trying to follow the Wiki with help from the forums and to no avail I have given up. I can't see this being that hard. I think I bork something up when I install Grub but I get no errors and it tells me I installed Grub successfully on /dev/sda. http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=80776 Thanks for any help in getting me a working Arch Linux system with RAID.

6 22

[arch-general] svn:keywords is not set on newer packages
by Evangelos Foutras 23 Nov '09

23 Nov '09

Hello, The $Id$ keyword came up while talking with Angel and I realized that the svn:keywords property doesn't get set on PKGBUILD for new packages, and thus $Id$ doesn't get updated on commit. I believe we should fix this, as this information is useful when determining when a PKGBUILD was last modified and by whom. May I suggest we do the following: 1) Edit the "Adding a package" section [1] of the packaging instructions in the DeveloperWiki to include this step. (Adding `svn propset svn:keywords "Id" new-package/trunk/PKGBUILD' below the $EDITOR line perhaps?) 2) Add this property to all packages (this has been done once before by Aaron, if I remember correctly). What's your view on this? ---- [1] http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:HOWTO_Be_A_Packager#Addin…

6 11

[arch-general] The ultimate Home Theater / media center computer
by RedShift 20 Nov '09

20 Nov '09

Hi list Somehow I got it into my head that I want a home theater PC. I'm growing tired of having to watch television and movies on my computer's 17" LCD screen. At the shop I used to work at, once in a while we'd build a media center computer, but the concept never really took off here (Belgium). There are many reasons for that, such as: * Television is major suckage here (thanks to That Big Company and Government-Not-Governing). The entire country is split into very small regions where broadcast frequencies differ, there's no unified TV guide system, not all regions can receive all channels. Digital television is even worse: That Big Company forces you to buy one of their proprietary decoders. The only way to receive digital television without restrictions is DVB-T with a very limited number of channels (basically nothing). * At that time, the hardware sucked (noisy, too big, not stylish enough to put it along your other hi-fi components, not powerful enough, limited digital outputs, etc...). The software wasn't much better (too complicated, took a long time to start, etc...). Anyway, my goal is to build the *ULTIMATE* HTPC. As such, strong demands must be met: The hardware: * It should be stylish, a timeless look which fits with your other hi-fi components. * It must be entirely silent. Zero moving components. No exceptions. * Unrestricted fully digital outputs. * Must be able to play at least 720p MKV's using x264 encoded video. * Easy remote control. No remote controls with more buttons than there are stars in the sky and certainly no "dual function" buttons (those functions in a different color which you need to flick a switch or are context dependent). * Able to receive DVB-C. The software: * There is no room for "Digital Rights Management" fascism. All content must play flawless and in the highest quality possible. In some cases this will mean circumventing protections. That'll probably make the device illegal in some countries, but I don't care. * Easy user interface (also see hardware remote control point). * Can connect to NAS or other storage devices such as USB sticks. In total: * Must be a complete replacement for your DVD player and other media devices. The goal here is keeping the number of remote controls down. Ideally you should only have two: one for controlling your HTPC and one for your hi-fi set. * It is geared towards modern television, that means stuff like HDTV and no legacy connector stuff (like composite). With those goals set, I started looking for hardware. Here's what I've come up with: * Case: Silverstone LC19 http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_spec.php?pno=lc19&area=usa + Fanless PSU. + Casefans can be removed + Comes with PCI-e and PCI risercards + Integrated cardreader and slimline optical slot + Available in black and silver + Accommodates standard ATX I/O shield + Room for a 3.5" storage device (SSD?) + Vents right above the CPU + Slim - Fits only small motherboard sizes - Only 120 watt PSU - No infrared receiver, no remote control * Motherboard: Asus P5N7A-VM http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=8YiUFvK51IergAqY&templete=2 + Powerful on-board graphics (nVidia 9300) + Supports 16 GB of RAM + eSATA port + Optical audio output + HDMI, DVI and VGA video output + Gigabit ethernet + Solid caps - nVidia on-board graphics (requiring proprietary driver) - On-board graphics use system memory - Crappy realtek audio codec * DVB-C receiver: ? I have zero experience with DVB-C receivers for computers. I've come across the "DVBWorldDTV Cable" (http://www.worlddvb.com/product/htm/pcic.htm) which seems to provide what I'm looking for. Anyone know how good this hardware actually is and how well it's supported by linux? I have an old hauppauge PVR-350 card which works well, unfortunately hauppauge doesn't seem to have DVB-C products. * Remote control: ? I want to have something simple here. Maybe a small USB infrared receiver and a simple remote control with buttons up, down, left, right, enter? Anyone know if such hardware exists? * Processor: Intel Celeron? No idea how much processing power would be required for a decent HTPC. Preferably as low powered as possible, as the CPU will have to be passively cooled. * Processor cooling: ? I was thinking of a big block with small fins which you see a lot in 1U rackservers. Copper would be the logical choice but from what I've read, aluminum allows for better heat transfer to the environment. So a copper base with alu fins would be ideal. * Storage: ? For storing the operating system I was thinking of those IDE compact flash cards. Downside is that they are very slow. An SSD can be considered but I want to leave the option open to use the 3.5" bay for a hard drive for people that don't have the luxury of a NAS or don't want to leave a NAS running all times. Moving along. The most annoying aspect: software. Obviously we want all our software to be open source. A shortlist of open source media center software: * MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org/) * XBMC (http://xbmc.org/) * Elisa (http://elisa.fluendo.com/) The point I really want to focus on is ease of use. Take this as a benchmark: you only have to explain your parents once how it works. Any suggestions, comments, thoughts, etc... are appreciated. Thanks, Best regards, Glenn

5 6

[arch-general] kde4 tip - quicklaunch in your panel -- convenience at your fingertips!
by David C. Rankin 11 Nov '09

11 Nov '09

Archers, For those that haven't used the quicklaunch widget, you need to take a look. The benefit of quicklaunch is that you can put 20-30 apps at your immediate fingertips in the space of 5-6 icons on the plasma panel (one-click access to all your favorite apps) Example: http://www.3111skyline.com/download/dt/kde4/quicklaunch/quicklaunch.jpg In order to add it to your plasma (kicker) panel, rt-click the panel and choose 'Panel Options' -> 'Add Widgets', scroll down and choose 'Quicklaunch'. It will appear at the far right end of your panel instead of where your mouse was due to a design flaw in the panel. To move it where you want it, go throught the same process, rt-click the panel choose 'Panel Options' -> 'Panel Settings' then you can move things around. (be careful not to click outide of the panel or you will have to navigate back to 'Panel Options' once again. As a matter of preference, I put the quicklaunch right next to the start menu with the pager on its right: http://www.3111skyline.com/download/dt/kde4/quicklaunch/quicklaunch- location.jpg of course you can put it anywhere, but when I think "launch application" I'm already programmed to go to the bottom left corner of the screen. I put systray, device notifier, clock and cashew at the other end of the panel. Just a personal preference: http://www.3111skyline.com/download/dt/kde4/quicklaunch/right-end-of-panel.… You can get rid of any other application icons you have on the panel, because they will now all go in quicklaunch. Also delete the show desktop icon -- you don't need it. If you set your pager settings correctly, then clicking on the current desktop in pager will "show desktop". (rt-click pager, pager options). To setup quicklaunch, right click it and choose Quicklaunch Settings. Set the visible icons to a sufficient number (I use 24). It won't expand until you put the icons in it. To add your applications to it, just right-click on the quicklauch above the icon where you would like the new icon to reside. (the new addition will push the current icon down (or to the right if it is in the bottom row) when you add it. After you choose add icon, you are presented with a small file open dialog (click on the floppy disk button). Navigate to /usr/share/applications or /usr/share/applications/kde4 to find the desktop file to add. (kde3 apps are in /opt/kde3/share/applications) Just repeat the process until you have the icons you want. It's not quite as good as putting a subtree from your menu in an icon on the panel (like kde3), but it is a good substitute until Will Stephenson's fix filters down from kde4 upstream. Try this quicklaunch approach, and I think you will find the convenience of the desktop improves quite a bit. Good luck ;-) -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com

4 9

[arch-general] Arch Linux makes the kde list!
by David C. Rankin 11 Nov '09

11 Nov '09

Guys, Next time you have a kde4 bug to file, you will have a new Distribution listed to file it under. Archlinux is now there! See: https://bugs.kde.org/wizard.cgi -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com

5 5

[arch-general] We have lost the desktop war. The reason? Windows 7.
by RedShift 07 Nov '09

07 Nov '09

This thread will probably erupt in a massive flamewar, yet I decided to post my story anyway. I am talking about the desktop experience in general, not the technical details behind it. Keep that in mind. I've been working these past few months with KDE 4.3 and it feels very sluggish and incomplete. I can't enable the desktop effects because that makes things even slower. I'm doing this on a fairly decent setup, an AMD Sempron 2 Ghz with an nVidia FX5500. My laptop suffers from this sluggishness as well. On top of that, lots of things annoy me in KDE 4.3, see the end of this post for my top annoyances. Yesterday I had to reboot to my Windows XP installation on this computer and I was shocked when I arrived in XP's userland. Everything was ridiculously fast. When returning to my linux desktop everything felt even more sluggish. That's when I decided to go back to KDE 3.5. I restored my old KDE 3.5 profile, installed the necessary packages and logged back in. WOOOOOF, everything is fast again. Opening new windows is instantaneous, hell even bringing up context menus is faster. If Linux is that much better, why does the current Linux desktop (KDE 4.3) still suck compared to an operating system that's 8 years old? Last week I also had the chance to check out Windows 7, and I was stumped. I was genuinly impressed by Windows 7's GUI. It feels fast, works fluently, it has nice effects which just work and work FAST. When browsing around it felt like a very solid desktop environment. I am jealous. I really am. The thought of using Windows 7 in favor of KDE 4.3 has occured to me much more than I like. And it's little things like dragging the windows to the top of the screen makes them maximized, dragging them to the left makes the take exactly 50% of the screen. How many times have you been manually resizing windows to fit next to each other? I have, too many times. These are things that really improve your productivity. So when should we have started working at a better desktop environment for Linux? When Mac OS X came out. When was that again? 2001. Yes, it really was that long ago. It already had awesome desktop effects that just work on (compared to these days) VERY modest hardware. And it worked fast as well. It was and still is a solid desktop environment. From that point on the Linux community should have recognized the threat Mac OS X was for the desktop environment. Unfortunately nobody did and we went on creating a big mess, fighting over implementations and technical details instead of attempting to create a solid desktop environment. Yet we did have a second chance in 2007. Microsoft obviously screwed up with Windows Vista, we had the chance to win back alot of terrain here until the release of Windows 7. So what did we come up with? KDE 4. Yes, a big dissapointment. We still don't have something that's comparable. So basically, where are we at? KDE 3.5 is Windows XP KDE 4.3 is Windows Vista ??? is Windows 7 When are we getting to the Windows 7 stage? Microsoft didn't do a big advertising campaign for the launch of Windows 7, nevertheless they delivered a big slap in the face to the Linux desktop environments. The numbers speak for themselves, Windows 7 has already sold more copies in its first week than Windows Vista did in its first month. And with good riddance, Windows 7 really is better than Windows Vista. Microsoft recognized the problems with Windows Vista and dealt with them. And dealt with them swiftly if you ask me, doing it in less then 3 years. Conclusion We are losing ground. We are losing it fast. Our competitors recognize what the user wants and delivered. If we are comparing enterprise desktops, there's no going around Red Hat. The current Red Hat desktop (5.4) ships with KDE 3.5, while its succesor RHEL 6 will be, if looking what Fedora brings now, shipped with KDE 4.2 or 4.3. That means KDE 4.2/4.3 will be the main desktop for enterprises for at least the next 3 years. A disgrace if you ask me. Users will be comparing desktop environments and they will find Windows 7 or Mac OS X to be better. After the damage RHEL 6 will have done to the reputation of the Linux desktop, it will take again as many years to rectify the damage done. Granted if we will have a solid desktop environment comparable to Windows 7 by the time RHEL 7 gets released. Which I can't help but doubt. My top KDE 4.3 annoyances: * Slooooowwww. Logging in takes a multifold of times it did under KDE 3.5, repainting windows takes up a lot of time * The battery status applet is buggy, it only shows the actual percentage after you've hovered it with the mouse, even when you've set it to always display. The scale it uses is also difficult to interpret. These bugs have been reported a long time ago and are still not fixed. * The run dialog is useless. The reason is the history function. It can't display a full history when you start typing, you have to type alot more. Having a pull down menu and using the arrow keys to select the entry you want is alot faster. Even Microsoft knows they shouldn't touch that dialog, it still works like a charm in windows 7. * Double clicking the system icon in the titlebar doesn't always work to close an application (the system icon is the left-most icon in the titlebar). This bug has also been reported a long time ago and still not fixed. * I get a full 10 minutes of extra runtime on my laptop when I switched back to 3.5 * Power management is buggy in KDE 4.3 and sometimes powerdevil just loses its settings * Some settings KDE 3.5 used to have aren't there anymore in KDE 4.3. * Where's my "home" icon!!!??? :-(

34 56

[arch-general] S3-level ACPI suspend
by b4283 05 Nov '09

05 Nov '09

Hi, I've had some nice experiences with Windows(XP)'s suspend functionality, and it seems to work on all machines I've worked with. and the other day I just had a successful resume on my machine with "s2ram -f -m -p", but it takes like a minute for it to fully recover to a terminal (tty/1). (ps: my computer is a desktop with AMD RS780 chipset, which isn't supported by KMS yet) Unlike Windows ones, which only take like 3-5 seconds to wake up, linux takes much longer, I don't know if this is common... My question is: What's the average resume time of yours, and is it possible to be any faster ?

6 9

Re: [arch-general] [arch-dev-public] Load_Cycle_Count and storage-fixup
by Damjan Georgievski 05 Nov '09

05 Nov '09

>> Anyone else has some opinion about how to handle this? > > I'd like to affirm the opinions of Roman and Xavier and take some action on > this. > > Anyone object to my putting storage-fixup in [extra] at least? If no > objections by W 9/21, I plan to go ahead with that step. If it works out, we > can talk about follow-up steps like: > > 1) moving it to [core] > 2) integrating it into default rc.d scripts > > It's a pretty serious issue for laptop users with affected drives. And the > drives are pretty popular ones, methinks. Also note that, when raising awerness about this issue, the fixup ussually needs to be run on resume from disk (and I think resume from ram) too. Not only on boot. -- damjan

10 17

[arch-general] google wave
by Jonathan Brown 04 Nov '09

04 Nov '09

Hi all, I know this is off-topic, but does anyone have a google wave invite that they just don't know who to give to? :) If so, I'm a bit desparate to try it out! Would be much appreciated and I would return the favor to others! jbssfl(a)gmail.com --Jon

38 75

[arch-general] editors graphic, video new (to archlinux) encoder decoder theora
by andrew james 02 Nov '09

02 Nov '09

news at 2009 09 http://theora.org/news/ the library encoder decoder theora version 1.1 was rewritten. It is "largely an improvement to the Theora encoder <http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/09/theora-1-1-released/>" this library is old in the repository arch also, ffmpeg2theora, "A simple converter to create Ogg Theora files", is a binary that (I know slightly) depends to the library is old in the repository arch. ffmpeg2theora-0.25 'use new libtheora 1.1' http://v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/index.html I am inexperienced with package management, for example the maintainers may know a conflicts or insecurity that is the reason to serve the old. However, this news is relevant. I will continue to act as a reporter to improve the quality of our community. andrew

2 2