November 2005 - openSUSE Users - openSUSE Mailing Lists

Hu?
by Steven T. Hatton 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

I originally saw this on a site called Planet SuSE. Please review my recent comments about GNOME and or the KDE. There are plenty of messages I posted online which can be retrieved. Of particular interest might be the week I spent crashing MonoDevelop. Oh, and do review my recent post describing my conversation with sun's senior manager of new product development. http://primates.ximian.com/~fejj/blog/archives/000035.html November 09, 2005 My Dad's Thoughts With the layoff announcement(s) and the recent FUD article by a KDE developer about Novell dropping support for KDE, my dad called me up this morning (that and we haven't spoken on the phone in a a few weeks) to do his fatherly duty and make sure everything was OK on my end and offer up his comments. After assuring him that I still had a job (wooo!), he commented that he had read (presumably on E-Week since I doubt he reads Slashdot or The DOT) that Novell was dropping KDE in favour of GNOME. He went on to say that he was glad that GNOME was chosen (as if I have anything to do with decision making) because he's gotten to really like the GNOME desktop and that he feels that GNOME is the more professional desktop of the two (he's used KDE extensively as well[1]). I asked my dad for clarification on why he thought GNOME was more professional - partly to pat myself on the back (hey! I'm a GNOME dev!), but also because I was genuinely interested in why he felt that way. What he told me was that from the comments he's seen by "KDE folks" always seemed to be immature and unprofessional - insulting GNOME and the GNOME developers without any technical merit, but purely based on emotional outcry. He's noticed it both in articles announcing GNOME accomplishments and in articles announcing KDE accomplishments. He's also noticed that the "pro-GNOME" commenters rarely stoop to such low levels of flaming KDE and it's developers, but rather stay positive. My dad feels that any accomplishment for KDE or GNOME is a win for Linux and is always happy to see either, but over the past few years that he's been using Linux and pushing Linux at work, he feels less and less desire to go with KDE because of such unprofessionalism from the KDE community. My dad didn't say this, but I can say with reasonable certainty that my dad couldn't care less about GNOME vs KDE, he just wants Linux to get better and become more viable to companies wanting to ditch Windows on the desktop. He also doesn't care about technical arguments about the underlying architectures of either desktop, he simply cares that the desktop is easy to use and works without problems. [1] My dad has been using Linux both at work (USGS) and at home for about 5 years now. His office has a couple Red Hat (using GNOME... wooo!) machines because he pushed hard for Linux (afaik they are Red Hat, I know they're not SuSE/Novell) but I think most of the desktops are currently Windows. I know he'd love to see the day when all of the desktops are Linux (but we gotta hurry, he's gonna retire in another 2 years!). When I first got my dad into Linux, he went with KDE (the first distro he "soloed" was Mandrake which installed KDE by default) and I never pushed him to use GNOME, I let him use whatever he wanted. He now runs Ubuntu. He switched to GNOME about 3 or 4 years ago now, I think right around the time Evolution 1.0 was released. Anyways... the reason I'm posting this is because I just loaded up Slashdot to find, much to my dismay, yet more GNOME/Ximian bashing. I keep hoping that these insults are not coming from the KDE developers themselves but rather just the vocal immature 12 year olds that seem to like flinging mud at GNOME whenever they get the chance. Maybe they're just jealous that we have clue and they bought theirs in isle 9 at K-Mart. I don't know. I wish more KDE followers could look up to and try to emulate great KDE hackers such as Mattias Etrich (spelling?) who are really great people, not only for their maturity but also for their ability to see the Big Picture(tm) and for being able to compliment the "opposition" (the quotes are because KDE and GNOME shouldn't feel they are competitors, they should be more like brothers in arms). Anyways, I mention Mattias because I remember speaking with him at GUADEC 2 in Denmark quite a few years ago now and I recall him praising Evolution and it felt really great to hear a KDE developer with such status as his saying something nice for a change, it restored my belief that KDE developers weren't the bunch of whiney immature idiots running around trolling on Slashdot. I still hope this is the case, I sincerely want to believe that it's not the KDE developers being so immature. I have felt this way for a long time now about the pro-KDE commenters on forums like Slashdot, Linuxtoday, and so on but haven't said anything because it'd be too easy for people to come back and say "yea, but you're a GNOME developer so you are biased". My dad has not chosen GNOME because I work on it (in fact, he didn't even know what I was working on until this morning when I told him over the phone), so his choice of GNOME is completely unbiased. My hope is that the people throwing out insults left and right about GNOME/Ximian and its developers will cease being so immature and irrational. Sadly, it's more likely that the insults will continue. sigh As one last plea to the KDE community (hopefully this need not apply to the developers) to straighten up and act professional... if this is what my dad sees and concludes, isn't it also likely that this is what other people are seeing? And if so, perhaps this is why there is so much more support for GNOME by corporations. They just don't want to deal with people who are so unprofessional. If you want KDE to be taken seriously, then you need to act professional. Note: These comments are my own and my dad's and not Novell's or anyone elses from the "Ximian Division" (hopefully I'm not saying anything that will be disagreeable by Novell). Posted by fejj at 10:20 PM | GNOME Comments Post a comment

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Build GAIM from src RPM on SuSE10
by Moby 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

Has anyone been able to successfully build GAIM from the source RPM for SuSE 10? Installing the source RPM and performing a rpmbuild -ba gaim.spec fails with errors as shown below: " In file included from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/galloca.h:30, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib.h:30, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/gmodule.h:30, from internal.h:88, from account.c:25: /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gtypes.h:41: error: syntax error before ‘typedef’ In file included from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib.h:31, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/gmodule.h:30, from internal.h:88, from account.c:25: /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/garray.h:32: error: syntax error before ‘G_BEGIN_DECLS’ /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/garray.h:34: error: syntax error before ‘typedef’ In file included from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gerror.h:24, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gthread.h:30, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gasyncqueue.h:30, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib.h:32, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/gmodule.h:30, from internal.h:88, from account.c:25: /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gquark.h:32: error: syntax error before ‘G_BEGIN_DECLS’ /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gquark.h:34: error: syntax error before ‘typedef’ /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gquark.h:41: error: syntax error before ‘gchar’/opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gquark.h:41: error: syntax error before ‘G_GNUC_CONST’ /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gquark.h:41: warning: type defaults to ‘int’ in declaration of ‘G_GNUC_CONST’ /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gquark.h:41: warning: data definition has no type or storage class In file included from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gthread.h:30, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gasyncqueue.h:30, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib.h:32, from /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/gmodule.h:30, from internal.h:88, from account.c:25: /opt/gnome/include/glib-2.0/glib/gerror.h:26: error: syntax error before ‘G_BEGIN_DECLS’ . . . " Doing a simple ./configure and make in the RPM build directory works fine, but then I do not get a nice RPM to install from. The issue seems to have something to do with the prefix definitions in the spec. file but I am not quite sure what it is. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for any help, -- --Moby They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. -- Pastor Martin Niemöller

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Unable to mount any filesystems on SuSE 9.3 machine
by Sbs Bofh 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

I've just been asked to have a look at a SuSE 9.3 machine which hasn't been rebooted in 188 days. It seems to have lost the ability to mount filesystems (sorry for the poor description), although the machine is running and appears otherwise healthy. ~ # tail /var/log/messages Nov 10 07:56:56 box1 modprobe: FATAL: Could not load /lib/modules/2.6.11.4-20a-smp/modules.dep: No such file or directory ~ # fdisk -l /dev/sdb Disk /dev/sdb: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 1 24319 195342336 83 Linux (this is an ext3 partition) ~ # mount /dev/sdb1 /two mount: unknown filesystem type 'ext3' (I've also tried mounting xfs and reiserfs filesystems and that doesn't work either). ~ # uname -a Linux box1 2.6.11.4-20a-smp #1 SMP Wed Mar 23 21:52:37 UTC 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux ~ # mount /dev/sda2 on / type reiserfs (rw,acl,user_xattr) proc on /proc type proc (rw) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw) tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5) usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw) /dev/fd0 on /media/floppy type subfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,sync,fs=floppyfss,procuid) /dev/fd0 on /media/floppy_1 type subfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,sync,fs=floppyfss,procuid) Why is /lib/modules/2.6.11.4-20a-smp/modules.dep apparently missing? If I go to yast2 and check for updates it seems some were applied ten days ago - I would imagine that includes kernel updates, but the machine obviously wasn't rebooted after patching. Is there a detailed log file of what's been applied via yast online update? Could it be that a kernel update has been done and the machine simply needs a reboot, or is this a sign of something far more serious? Thanks in advance for any suggestions James

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Set up a mail server
by Laurent Renard 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

Who knows a good url who explains how to set up a mail server with Suse ? -- Laurent Renard

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Floppy mount in Suse 10
by Matt Stamm 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

I just started using Suse 10 and noticed that the floppy gets mounted during system-startup. I'm use to Suse 8.1 where I mount and un-mount the floppy as needed. How can I prevent the floppy mount during system startup? I looked breifly in Yast but didn't see anything. Thanks, Matt

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mysql install problems
by perlcgi2000 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

I'm trying to install mysql on suse 9.3 using apt. It seems to install ok and chkconfig --add mysql works. But when I try mysql start (in etc/init.d) I get: ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2) var/lib/mysql is empty. What am I doing wrong ? Thanks, Nathan ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

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Grabbing focus
by Carlos E. R. 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, Suppose the following scenario, with SuSE 9.3 and gnome (with metacity), but probably valid elsewhere. a) I'm working on one workspace, for example scanning documents with gimp. b) I decide to open in OOo a large document in another workspace, so I open OpenOffice at another workspace, give it the file to open, and I go back to the first workspace. c) But several times, four or five times, OOo grabs the focus back for himself, pulling me from my working workspace to the second workspace to which I have no intention to go for the moment (it will take it some time to open that file). Why does it have such bad manners? I'd spank it if I could... hope you understand what I mean. Any way to stop that nasty behavior? If I go to a workspace, I don't want any program at all to take me to see some yet unfinished job on another. Ideas? I have gone to "gnome control center", but I can't see anything that might help me control focus grabbing... - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDcj/EtTMYHG2NR9URAuS+AJ427sO3jtIE3hI6uR0pBEONDNm5XACgj/Vz FisN1do1dPGJhhBy9fl3IiU= =rYzH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [SLE] Laptop / wireless card problem with HD detection
by Adam Vazquez Kb2jpd 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

The IRQ used for the hard drive and the wireless card is one and the same. You dont need that. You need separate IRQs for the HD and the wireless card.You need to block that IRQ from being captured by the PCMCIA controller. look at 'dmesg' and start with the IRQs of your IDE controller. Do the same with cardmgr or the cardutils. Usually IRQ 11 is set aside for the PCMCIA controller but you are having a conflict with IRQ 7. Somehow, you have to correct the IRQ steering so your hard drive does not disappear. Adam -----Original Message----- From: "Paul W. Abrahams" <abrahams(a)acm.org> Subj: [SLE] Laptop / wireless card problem with HD detection Date: Sun Nov 6, 2005 7:12 pm Size: 874 bytes To: suse-linux-e(a)suse.com It seems that the installation CD for 10.0 doesn't work on my laptop (a Dell Inspiron 1000) if the wireless card is inserted into the slot; the hard drive can't be detected. Even the rescue system has the problem; "fdisk /hda" says that the disk is unreadable. (Windows has no similar problem.) What's more, with the system installed, shutdown, or even switching users in KDE, hangs up if the wireless card is inserted. Somehow the presence of that card seems to confuse Linux (the kernel, probably) very badly. Has anyone else seen this behavior? I can get around the problem by withdrawing the card, but that shouldn't be necessary. Paul -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help(a)suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq(a)suse.com

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Re: [SLE] vmware 5.0 on suse 10.0 64bit
by Janko Mivšek 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

Hmm, I can't somehow find that package on suse10.0-64 distribution, but nevermind, problem is solved and I just like to thank you an all others for your help! Janko Syv Ritch wrote: > Janko Mivšek wrote: > >> I alos installed gcc++ but don't find kernel-syms! Is that some rpm >> package or where can I find it? > > > Yes in YAST. do a search for syms and it comes: > > > kernel-syms - Kernel Symbol Versions ("modversions") > > > Kernel symbols such as functions and variables have version information > attached to them. This package contains the symbol versions for the > standard kernels. > > It has to match your kernel > -- Janko Mivšek Svetovalec za informatiko EraNova d.o.o. Ljubljana, Slovenija www.eranova.si tel: 01 514 22 55 faks: 01 514 22 56 gsm: 031 674 565

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Why do _you_ use free software?
by Steven T. Hatton 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

I could say a lot, and I have already said a lot on this in other threads, but I want to hear what others have to say on this. I just want to get a thread going. When I get a bit of free time, I put in my 2¢. BTW, back in the mid 90's I made a call the sun Micorsystems and spoke at length with their senior manager for new product development. I suggested he look into working on an open source desktop. I really wanted him to go with the KDE, but I laid everything out as I saw it. At that time there was the Qt license issue that has since been resolved. He asked me to send him an email summarizing what I had told him verbally. In that email I explained to him that I was not a lawyer, but there were some leagal questions regarding Qt's licensing model. I was later informed by someone at sun that their reason for going with the GNOME had to do with the uncertainty of the licensing arrangement. That's just me. Forthright and honest. Steven

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