- Arch-general - lists.archlinux.org

[arch-general] customized ArchLinux install CD with speech support
by Chris Brannon 10 Dec '08

10 Dec '08

I am happy to announce the first release of a modified ArchLinux CD for i686 with speech support. The .iso should be almost equivalent to the FTP installer, with one exception: it starts speaking at boot. One may obtain the image via HTTP or via BitTorrent. Download URL: http://cmb.tysdomain.com/talking-arch-ftp.iso Torrent: http://members.cox.net/cmbrannon/talking-arch-ftp.iso.torrent Note that it is a trackerless torrent, and it won't work with older clients. Thanks to Tyler for hosting the downloadable image. The following list of steps is a brief guide to installing ArchLinux with speech. I haven't tested the install process, because my machines are all occupied. If anyone has trouble with it, send me a private email. The instructions assume that your root partition will be mounted on /mnt. Change /mnt to something else if this assumption doesn't hold. 1. Use the installer on the CD, as per the beginner's guide. 2. Install the alsa-utils and espeak packages: pacman --root=/mnt -S alsa-utils espeak 3. Install the speakup and espeakup packages. These are not yet available in the community repository. There are two ways to install them, depending on how much you trust me. Alternative 1: Use the binary packages from my website. I promise that the speakup package will always match the kernel version available from the official repos. Append the following two lines to /etc/pacman.conf and /mnt/etc/pacman.conf: [blind] Server = http://members.cox.net/cmbrannon/blind/i686 Install the packages from my custom repository: pacman --root=/mnt -Sy speakup espeakup Alternative 2: Build the packages from source, using the PKGBUILDs available from unsupported. For convenience, the URLs are: http://aur.archlinux.org/download/speakup/speakup.tar.gz http://aur.archlinux.org/download/espeakup/espeakup.tar.gz If I were going to choose this option, I would probably chroot into the newly installed ArchLinux system in order to build the packages. 4. Customize /mnt/etc/rc.conf: Add speakup and speakup_soft to the MODULES array. Add alsa and espeakup to the DAEMONS array. We also need to save the state of the sound card, so that it will be retrieved on reboot. Execute the command "alsactl store" and copy the file /etc/asound.state to /mnt/etc/asound.state. When you boot the system from the hard disk, it should start speaking. -- Chris Disclaimers: I am in no way associated with ArchLinux. This CD image is not an official release. It is provided solely for the convenience of myself and other blind / visually impaired users. It comes with absolutely no warranty. Download and use at your own risk. -- Chris

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[arch-general] Kernel PKGBUILD proposition: Ease custom kernel compilation.
by Nicolas Bigaouette 09 Dec '08

09 Dec '08

Hi all! Since a couple of years of using Arch, I often wanted to compile a custom kernel, as many others did. There is many, many, many! forum threads about that, a couple of wiki pages too, with questions and howtos. Many efforts has been put to create new PKGBUILDs[1-2] to ease the effort of this. Unfortunately, these PKGBUILDs suffer from some drawback: 1) They are placed on a wiki which can be edited by everybody. This mean it is not a trusted place to store a PKGBUILD, specifically one as vital as the kernel's. 2) They tend to be forgotten and not updated anymore. This can lead to an unbootable kernel, rendering all this useless. 3) They do not take advantage of the devs' work: They are the best one to trust for a quality PKGBUILD. They also have all the feedback from Arch users, bug reports, etc. They know what has changed in the kernel and what needs to be adapted for the installation, for example new "provides=()". A PKGBUILD from a wiki page or a forum post might be good at the time of post, but be outdated just days latter... 4) They build a kernel which is way different then the stock one, for example because they don't have the same patchset. Users most often wants to build a custom kernel just to try it, change some configurations, add one or two patch, optimize for their own machines, etc. Maily, they just want to take the existing one, change a couple of things, and be ready. One also wants to install this kernel side by side with the stock one, at least until his own kernel is stabilized and running as wanted. Actually, Arch's stock kernel does not allow that. What I propose is some simple modifications to the PKGBUILD so users can try to compile their own kernel based on the original, trusted, working and approved one. With theese modifications, one only needs to add a "kernel name" to the pkgname: "pkgname=kernel26-mykernel" for example. Nothing else is needed to compile a custom kernel. The created package would sit without problem side by side with the stock kernel. Also, if the pkgname is kept to "kernel26", then the stock -ARCH kernel will be built. This approach has many advatanges: 1) The patch is relativelly small: not much is changed in the original PKGBUILD. 1) Nothing changes for the devs. They continue to provide a quality kernel to Arch users. 2) Users who wants to compile a custom kernel can just sync abs, change the pkgname and install a new kernel, in the KISS philosophy. They know that if they just change the name, they will have the same package so they can easily test whatever feature/patch/bug solution/optimization they want. 3) Because one only needs to change the pkgname, they use the devs' high quality, tried and truth PKGBUILD. When a new kernel is out, they can sync the devs' modifications easily. 4) Bugs affecting the kernel can be easily tested for solutions. Affected users just need to compile a "-testing" kernel where a patch is applied, install it and see if it works, without having to risk breaking his system by replacing -ARCH kernel with an unbootable one. 5) Better feedback to the devs since the users would be using (almost) the same PKGBUILD as the original one. 6) Simplify a lot all these "custom kernels" threads and wiki posts. I did "maintained" such a patch for myself because I wanted to keep in sync with the original PKGBUILD. After posting it on the forum[3], I got some positive feedback. People reporting back said they liked the simplicity and the effectiveness of the method. They also positively tested it with different configuration. The patch should be applied to revision 19747 for i686 or 19749 for x86_64. It modifies the PKGBUILD and also slightly the kernel26.install and kernel26.preset file. I am thus reporting this to be include in the official file. I think it would be a great addition to an already great distro. I am open to discussion on the subject. I hope I am posting this on the right mailing list and that it can be included! :) Sincerely, big_gie [1] http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kernel_Compilation_with_ABS [2] http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Custom_Kernel_Compilation_with_ABS [3] http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=37579

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[arch-general] foo & bar
by Grigorios Bouzakis 09 Dec '08

09 Dec '08

http://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/linux/archlinux/extra/os/

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[arch-general] Update to latest jre/jdk break Eclipse
by Christian Babeux 09 Dec '08

09 Dec '08

Hi, I recently updated my laptop, and it updated JRE and JDK. After that update Eclipse won't start. I don't know if it need rebuilding because I saw on the dev list that we are no longer using Sun's JVM and opted for the open-source one (openjdk) (correct me if I am wrong) ? Anyway here the relevant versions of the packages : eclipse 3.4.1-1 jdk 6u11-1 jre 6u11-1 I attached the Eclipse log file with this message. *EDIT*: For some reasons the list wouldn't let me post the log file so here a link: http://pastebin.com/m1beb7eb9 Any ideas why it's broken ? Thank you, Christian Babeux

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[arch-general] [signoff] kernel26 2.6.27.8-1
by Tobias Powalowski 08 Dec '08

08 Dec '08

Hi guys, new kernel adresses the following things: - bump to latest version please signoff for both arches, greetings tpowa -- Tobias Powalowski Archlinux Developer & Package Maintainer (tpowa) http://www.archlinux.org tpowa(a)archlinux.org

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[arch-general] Welcome Geoffroy Carrier!
by Aaron Griffin 08 Dec '08

08 Dec '08

I want to wish a warm welcome to our new developer and bluetooth maintainer, Geoffroy Carrier (gcarrier) For those who don't know Geoffroy, he's been with us for some time, helped out with pacman development (in particular, with code in the signed-packages arena), and has been a TU for since May of this year. He plans on primarily helping us out with Bluetooth packages (which we've been slacking on these days), among other things. Hip-hip-hooray!

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[arch-general] Keyboard's keymap now changed since evdev upgrade
by Will Siddall 08 Dec '08

08 Dec '08

Hey all, I say I'm pretty comfortable with everything in arch now, but this keyboard issue is starting to drive me nuts. Not too long ago, the change from using kbd to evdev was made and ever since then, my keyboard is all messed up. I can still use my keyboard, but specific keys are changed around. Looking around, everyone is refering to issues with KDEMod, but I'm using Gnome and using the Evdev-Managed Keyboard. I specified in my 10-keymap.fdi rule file the proper settings and updated my xorg.conf with no change. The real issue I have is my arrow keys don't work anymore (except for the up arrow is giving me the ScreenCap window) and using xev, the keys are bringing back keycodes for other events. Which is making it REALLY hard to work with vi and just working with the command line in general. Am I actually going to have to re-key all my keycodes by hand? or is there a way to find out what's going on and properly set my key events? Thanks, Will

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[arch-general] "ArchLinux on Eeee PC 901" in "freiesMagazin 12/2008"
by Johannes Held 07 Dec '08

07 Dec '08

Hey Folks! freiesMagazin 12/2008 [1] published an article about ArchLinux on Asus Eee PC 901. [1]: http://freiesmagazin.de/ -- Gruß, Johannes Täglich http://blog.hehejo.de und du fühlst dich gut. http://cryptocd.eduforge.org/online_version

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[arch-general] [Warning] Update your php installation
by Pierre Schmitz 07 Dec '08

07 Dec '08

Hi all, I wrote this mail to avoid any confusion about the last two updates of the php package. For the lazy ones: Make sure to update to php-5.2.7-2 In detail: php-5.2.7-1 fixes some security issues. Imho the most serious one is the following described by Stefan Esser: http://www.suspekt.org/2008/12/05/php-527-and-ziparchiveextractto/ Other important changes are summarized in the official changelog which can be found at: http://www.php.net/releases/5_2_7.php Yesterday Jürgen Hötzel noticed that this new version of php breaks magic_quote_gpc. (http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=46759) Well, it does not quote anything when enabled. Even though magic_quotes are disabled by default and shouldn't be used at all, this is a serious bug for those who still use apps that rely on this feature. I fixed this bug with the php-5.2.7-2 package. Especially those who have magic_quotes enabled should update to this version. Maybe there will be another upstream release soon. Pierre -- Pierre Schmitz Clemens-August-Straße 76 53115 Bonn Telefon 0228 9716608 Mobil 0160 95269831 Jabber pierre(a)jabber.archlinux.de WWW http://www.archlinux.de

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[arch-general] Xorg change and intel drivers make me sad.
by Daniel Quinn 07 Dec '08

07 Dec '08

I'm not sure if the arch-general is the place to ask these kinds of questions, so if it is not, please redirect me to where this is more appropriate. The latest change to use Xorg-7.4 appears to have brought with it the requirement that I switch from the old xf86-video-i810 video drivers to the newer xf86-video-intel ones. Unfortunately, this introduces a number of serious for my Thnkpad (x41): Video (mplayer) in fullscreen is choppy and slow. Complaints of my hardware being too slow etc. All of my compiz-effects have suffered crippling performance losses. If left alone for about 15min, the screen blanks and cannot be-activated. Switches to the console fail and the box is non-responsive on the network. Basically the whole machine locks up. What is the "Arch way" out of this? I heard that the new kernel that isn't in the tree yet is supposed to fix this, and there's also the fact that the old config worked just fine. I'd like to go back, but I'm unsure as to how to do so without running into this same problem when I run "pacman -Syu" again. Any help/suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

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