December 2009 - openSUSE Factory - openSUSE Mailing Lists

[opensuse-factory] 11.2 Release Notes
by Karl Eichwalder 25 Jun '10

25 Jun '10

It would be good if we would start with collection release notes snippets for 11.2 now. Do not hesitate to provide input! Here is some background information: http://en.opensuse.org/Release_Notes -- Karl Eichwalder R&D / Documentation SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-factory] Kernel Mode Setting (KMS) for openSUSE.
by Egbert Eich 29 Mar '10

29 Mar '10

Folks - In yesterday's discussion about the future of SaX2 it has been requested that changes that will affect users in the future are communicated to the openSUSE community early. KMS (kernel mode setting) integration would be such a feature, thus I would like to announce this here and one step further dive into a technical discussion about a possible solution. Furthermore test packages are available to try things out on Factory. I would like to encourage people interested in development and technical discussions in general to participate in the discussion and the development efforts. Kernel Modesetting (KMS) ======================== All of you who are using a graphical desktop on Linux have been using the X Window Sytem. The X Window System Server (XServer) is the instance which receives requests from your desktop applications to draw all the widgets (windows, buttons, images etc.) you see on your desktop. It also processes input from your keyboard and mouse and sends them to applications as events. Traditionally on Linux the XServer does not only draw images to the screen (ie writes them to some sort of frame buffer) but it is in charge of initializing, setting up and driving the graphics hardware. This paradigm which has been true since the X Window System has been ported to Linux is about to change: Much of the initialization, set up (video mode setting) and control of the graphics hardware is about to move to the Linux kernel. There are a number of advantages to this: - A central instance is in charge of the graphics hardware, other user mode applications (not just the Xserver) can take advantage of mode setting. - The Xserver will no longer require full root privileges as it doesn't talk to the hardware directly any more. - Faster boot process: The Xserver doesn't need to (re)initialize the graphics hardware any more, this is all done by the kernel very early in the boot cycle. - Smoother (flicker free) boot experience: The screen doesn't flicker and changes resolution any more when the Xserver starts. - One central entity is in charge and manages the resources of the graphics hardware - like the video memory which makes sharing of these resources between several applications (like Xserver and several DRI (Direct Rendering 3D) applications much easier. KMS is integrated in the DRM drivers. In the near future most graphics driver will switch to KMS: - Intel already ships a fully working KMS driver. Future Intel chipsets will be supported by the KMS driver only. - KMS in the Radeon DRM driver is still work in progress but it is already working well on some chipsets. - Noveau is relying heavily on KMS for their free 3D driver for NVIDIA chipsets. The proprietary ATI and NVIDIA drivers are unlikely to switch to KMS in the near future. Integration in openSUSE ======================= Now this begs the question what we have to do to integrate it into openSUSE. Originall I had plans to look into this for openSUSE 11.2 already - but then I got side tracked by other stuff it fell on the floor and noone else beat me to it either ... oh well. Now I had the chance to play around with KMS a little and came up with some ideas and a proof of concept. It turned out that the changes to openSUSE needed to fully support KMS are quite small. Key is to load the KMS aware DRM driver as early as possible in the boot process to avoid video mode changes later in the boot cycle - preferrably in the initrd. The Boot Process ---------------- On openSUSE the boot loader is configured for two boot scenarios: default and failsafe. The user can select the failsafe boot scenario in case the default scenario does not work for him. In the failsafe scenario certain features are deactivated which have shown to cause problems on some systems. Since KMS is a new feature it is a candidate for deactivation during a failsafe boot. Instead the system should then boot into the VESA framebuffer mode. Should this also fail the kernel will automatically fall back to a VGA text mode. To disable KMS on boot a new boot parameter is introduced: 'nomodeset'. This parameter is to the boot command line for the failsafe mode. The user may add this parameter by hand for any other boot mode. The kernel command line is parsed in initrd and an appropriate entry is created in /etc/modprobe.d/options. Furthermore the graphics driver module and - if required - the agp module(s) are added in the correct order (agp modules first) to the list of modules to be loaded initially. Changes to individual packages ============================== 1. yast2-bootloader & perl-Bootloader ------------------------------------- The boot parameter 'nomodeset' is added to the failsafe boot paramter lists in each of the modules. (I have not been able to find out which module provides the entry relevant for which situation, therefore I've whacked both.) yast2-bootloader updates the variable FAILSAFE_APPEND in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader appropriately. 2. kernel-source ---------------- To use KMS for a certain DRM driver the kernel config option CONFIG_DRM_<driver_name>_KMS needs to be set to 'y'. At the moment we will support KMS only for Intel hardware, thus only the variable CONFIG_DRM_I915_KMS needs to be changed. In the sample build this has been enabled for the -default, -desktop, -pae, -debug, -trace and -vanilla kernels for the i386 and x86_64 platforms. The kernel boot splash has already been fixed for KMS for openSUSE 11.2. 3. mkinitrd ----------- This package writes the initrd file. To add KMS support to the initrd mkinitrd needs to perform the following tasks: 1. Check the sysconfig variable NO_KMS_IN_INITRD, if set, don't attempt to install a KMS DRM capable driver. 2. Obtain a list of PCI devices installed on the system. 3. a. In the list of PCI devices identify those devices which are of class VGA and look for a matching driver. b. Before a driver is matched check the PCI vendor, device, subvendor and subdevice ids against a blacklist in /etc/kms/blacklist should this file exist. This file contains one vendor, device, subvendor and subdevice id per line, '*' serves as a wildchar, trailing wildchars may be ommitted, '#' at the beginning of a line serves as a comment. c. Use the standard modprobe alias mechanism to find a matching DRM driver module. This way standard blacklistings of kernel modules will be honored and update modules will be searched if they are available. KMS capable DRM drivers provide an alias list (in contrast to non-KMS capable DRM drivers which are to be loaded explicitely by the Xserver). d. If a driver is found check for a black listing in /etc/kms/<driver_name>.blacklist. The same rules as in 3 b. apply. 4. If a KMS capable DRM driver is found search for an agp driver: a. Obtain a list of all known agp drivers for the specific kernel and collect their alias lists. b. Match all installed PCI devices against the alias lists of each agp driver. If a match is found add the driver to the lists of modules to be loaded. Make sure that this driver is loaded prior the the DRM driver. Two scripts setup-kms.sh and boot-kms.sh are added to mkinitrd. The former performs the tasks listed above, the latter provides the required module dependencies in the required order, parses the boot command line for the 'nomodeset' option and adds the apropriate entry to /etc/modprobe.d/options. The linuxrc script is extended to search the boot command line for <drivername>.<option>=* strings for each driver loaded in initrd and add the <option>=* part to /etc/modprobe.d/options. 4. udev ------- Udev loads any modules which are not loaded by linuxrc scripts directly. It is possible to let udev load the required DRM and AGP modules provided it is made sure that this happens in the correct order. Since there is no explicit dependency of DRM modules to AGP drivers as there is no general one to one match between the two drivers a udev rule must exist to enforce the correct order for all cases where a AGP module is required. This is true for Intel DRM drivers and any other driver for an AGP graphics chip. For this a rule file 79-waitfor-agp.rules is added which is run before 80-drivers.rules. It checks if either an Intel graphics (class VGA) device is processed or if the graphics device is an AGP device. The latter condition is tested by an auxiliary tool (is_agp) which is passed the kernel name of the event device. If either condition is true udev will wait for /dev/agpgart to appear before proceeding to load a DRM driver module. 'is_agp' checks the capabilities flags in the PCI config space of this device for AGP. The changes to udev are not strictly required to make KMS work, still they augment the default module load process Installation ============ Modified packages for Factory of - kernel-source, - mkinitrd, - yast2-bootloader, - perl-Bootloader, - mkinitrd - udev can be found in my build service home on OBS under home:eeich:Factory-KMS. For installation add http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home://eeich://Factory-KMS/openSU… to your installation repository and update the packages in question (going thru the usual vendor change hassle). It is advisable to update mkinitrd before updating the kernel. Then when the kernel is installed the modified mkinitrd will be used and all steps required to install KMS will be performed. TODO ==== - The kernel bootsplash sometimes produces wrong colors (WIP). Add KMS - Add KMS support to the RadeonHD driver. Cheers, Egbert. -- Egbert Eich (Res. & Dev.) SUSE LINUX Products GmbH X Window System Development Tel: +49 911-740 53 0 http://www.suse.de ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-factory] [RFC] Drop glib/gtk/gnome 1.x stack
by Vincent Untz 11 Jan '10

11 Jan '10

Hi, For a while, I've been wondering why we still have glib 1.x and gtk 1.x (as well as some other part of the GNOME 1.x stack). So today I looked at this closely, and I think we can work towards removing those packages. Why should we remove those libraries? Well, they're not maintained upstream, and from a security point of view, this can be quite bad. See below for some analysis on which package it impacts, and what needs to be done. Please have a look at the list of packages that would get removed. Note: I've filed this as https://features.opensuse.org/308601 Thanks, Vincent ====================================================================== One package needs to be investigated: psx-plugins. All other packages fall in some category: Packages that need to be updated or changed =========================================== fvwm2-gtk: - this is only a GTK-based alternative for GUI elements in fvwm. Not critical. - remove the dependency from fvwm2 icewm: - simple wm - make it compile without imlib mgp: - tool for presentation - add patch to move to imlib2 (from Debian, and committed upstream) procmeter: - monitoring tool - version 3.5 is based on GTK+ 2.x qiv: - image viewer - version 2.2.2 (http://spiegl.de/qiv/) uses GDK 2.x smilutils: - tool to convert/edit digital video data (used by kino) - ported to GTK+ 2.0 in cvs - other distributions use code from cvs swami: - soundfont editor - uses GTK+ 2.x in svn - will have a release by next May according to mailing list TeX-Guy: - dvi library and utilities - GTK+ 1.x only needed for xgdvi - evince can replace xgdvi usbview: - display topography of USB devices - version 1.1 uses GTK+ 2.x WindowMaker-applets: - various applets for WindowMaker - it looks like E-Notes, wmtimer and wmcliphist are the ones requiring the new libraries - wmcliphist 1.0 uses GTK+ 2.x - wmtimer 2.92 uses GTK+ 2.x - e-notes 0.5 was released in 2001, and there has been no change since then (we have 0.4). Maybe just drop it? wmakerconf: - configuration tool for Window Maker - versions >= 2.11 use GTK+ 2.x xteddy: - some weird app ;-) - version 2.2 uses imlib 2 xzgv: - image viewer - 0.9.x versions use GTK+ 2.x Packages that can be safely removed =================================== ami: - Korean input method - scim deprecates this fnlib: - font rendering for enlightenment - was used by old versions of enlightenment only, as far as I know gau: - Gtk-based Hangul terminal emulator - shouldn't be needed with a recent terminal and a good Korean input method gdk-pixbuf: - library for images - can only be used with GTK+ 1.x (was integrated in GTK+ 2.x) gnome-libs: - GNOME 1.x libraries - can only be used with GTK+ 1.x goom2k4: - visual effects generator for mp3 players - not used by anything anymore, as far as I can tell (code was integrated in gstreamer) imlib: - image loading and rendering library - part of what we want to remove kanji-lookup: - simple kanji lookup application - gucharmap can be used nicolatter: - Japanese input method - scim deprecates this orbit: - GNOME 1.x library - can only be used with GTK+ 1.x Packages that can be removed, but with no replacement ===================================================== Those are all dead upstream. bombermaze: - game (bomberman/dynablaster clone) - similar games are available in the games OBS project (xblast, tomatoes) gbuffy: - mailbox watcher - patch to port to gtk2 available in case someone wants to resurrect the project: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=515274 pcpmon: - graphical monitor for Performance Co-Pilot - kmchart is an alternative soundtracker: - sound editor - has been removed from Debian -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-factory] GRUB2 / FATE 308497
by Jeff Mahoney 06 Jan '10

06 Jan '10

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi everyone - Occasionally I take a break from kernel hacking. Recently, I was working on improving the reiserfs support in grub so that it doesn't take forever to load when there is a journal with outstanding transactions that need to be replayed. The thing is that the grub 0.97 code is truly awful. Every file system implementation has to implement strangely chosen primitives and, outside of the code itself, has 32k in memory which it has to manage itself and not exceed. This is the crux of the reiserfs /boot performance issue in bnc#538795. On top of that, the upstream grub developers refuse to accept fixes or features against 0.97, forcing distributors to carry patches around forever. The good news is that GRUB2 lifts a whole lot of restrictions. It's modular in design, has a cleaner implementation, and has native support for more file systems. It supports LVM and MD RAID volumes. It supports DMRAID volumes (though I'm not sure how well here). The upstream development community is interested in maintaining it. The bad news is that it's a boot loader. There may be bugs lurking in there. That are tough to track down and leave you with an unbootable system. So who wants to help test? :) - -Jeff - -- Jeff Mahoney SUSE Labs -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAksee5UACgkQLPWxlyuTD7LfzgCeNNBHRMuyP8scWJrOfSjFkXiV fZkAoJoT9lBFwPxlzRRoA5UFjKzDMhUu =i06N -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-factory] Blender 2.49b
by Donn Washburn 02 Jan '10

02 Jan '10

In a konsole or from an icon Blender 2.49b fails to come up in KDE4 (kde4-4.3.85-1.1.i586) openSuSE 11.3, NVidia factory .run. Seems to be a KDE problem. Need a KDE BUG report? Compiled with Python version 2.6.2. Checking for installed Python... got it! ERROR: Unable to open Blender window As root or a user - it comes up and then disappears. -- 73 de Donn Washburn 307 Savoy Street Email:" n5xwb(a)comcast.net " Sugar Land, TX 77478 LL# 1.281.242.3256 Ham Callsign N5XWB HAMs : " n5xwb(a)arrl.net " VoIP via Gizmo: bmw_87kbike / via Skype: n5xwbg BMW MOA #: 4146 - Ambassador " http://counter.li.org " #279316 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-factory] KDE4<>KDE3
by Donn Washburn 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

Happy New Year to All; I just tried to get a audio mixer like kmix (Qt3) in openSuSE 11.3 using "zypper in kmix" Zypper came back with about 4 or 5 not needed thing that it was going to remove. Fine! Head on, Do it. Zypper started and removed about 25 packages and installed kmix. Execute kmix and <unknown program name>(829)/: KUniqueApplication: Cannot find the D-Bus session server: "Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken." <unknown program name>(828)/: KUniqueApplication: Pipe closed unexpectedly. Kmix fails to work! Is there a list of QT4 <> QT3 programs like kmix to ? -- 73 de Donn Washburn 307 Savoy Street Email:" n5xwb(a)comcast.net " Sugar Land, TX 77478 LL# 1.281.242.3256 Ham Callsign N5XWB HAMs : " n5xwb(a)arrl.net " VoIP via Gizmo: bmw_87kbike / via Skype: n5xwbg BMW MOA #: 4146 - Ambassador " http://counter.li.org " #279316 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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Re: [opensuse-factory] [RFC] Drop glib/gtk/gnome 1.x stack
by Cristian Rodríguez 31 Dec '09

31 Dec '09

On 30/12/09 20:32, Philipp Thomas wrote: > On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:01:26 -0300, you wrote: > >> Yes, and looks like a suitable replacement for XMMS, Im actually using >> the RPM you just provided, thanks :) > > I will have to check in the next days as this sounds promising :) > >> Will be great If packman can ship a subpackage qmmp-restricted or >> similar though. > > I'll see what I can do as soon as I'm back from vacation. I already modified seife's package so it can be link'ed from packman OBS containing a "restricted" package wrapped in "if packman_bs.." We now need to a) package "ProjectM" libraries b) figure out if "bs2b" is patent encumbered. (legal folks ? ) c) test it, though it compiles with no warnings whatsoever. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-factory] libxcb-shape.a
by Sid Boyce 29 Dec '09

29 Dec '09

xine-lib 1.1.17 calls for the above library which no longer is part of xorg-x11-libxcb-devel. There is just libxcb-shape.so.0.0.0 and its symlinks, also libxcb-shape.la which is used, it's still looking for the .a even with --enable-shared. I seem to remember that we were getting rid of .a libraries in openSUSE, the .a library was still hanging around unowned and unusable after up upgrades. I should think the problem is with the source code. Can anyone suggest a workaround - or may be the xine developers need to be made aware. Regards Sid. -- Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, Licensed Private Pilot Emeritus IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support Specialist, Cricket Coach Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-factory] Christmas time
by Stephan Kulow 29 Dec '09

29 Dec '09

Hi, As many of us have vacation, there are currently not many commits - which is good as it gave me time to fix up the livecd build :) So for the first time since 11.2 we have building factory ISOS at: http://download.opensuse.org/factory/iso/ Happy vacation :) Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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[opensuse-factory] checkinstall
by Donn Washburn 29 Dec '09

29 Dec '09

openSuSE 11.2 RC 1 I see "checkinstall" is still broken. Something keeps it from writing in a directory that exist. /usr/src/packages/BUILDROOT -- 73 de Donn Washburn 307 Savoy Street Email:" n5xwb(a)comcast.net " Sugar Land, TX 77478 LL# 1.281.242.3256 Ham Callsign N5XWB HAMs : " n5xwb(a)arrl.net " VoIP via Gizmo: bmw_87kbike / via Skype: n5xwbg BMW MOA #: 4146 - Ambassador " http://counter.li.org " #279316 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe(a)opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help(a)opensuse.org

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