What's All This Brouhaha? » Fedora

Building EPEL6 packages that use Qt 4

Eric — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 04:56:41 +0000

I’ve been trying to build an EPEL 6 package (for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Centos 6, etc.) of Meshlab, for which I already have a Fedora package. The latest challenge is that the Koji build server is trying to use qt-devel-3.x, while Meshlab needs qt-devel-4.x.

The obvious thing to do was to change the spec from:

BuildRequires: qt-devel

BuildRequires: qt-devel >= 4.6

However, Koji still tries to use qt-devel-3.x!

A Google search revealed an explanation in the rpmfusion-developers list from Kevin Fenzi:

That doesn’t work because it’s missing the Epoch. “>= 1:4″ would work, but it’s better to use the virtual qt4-devel Provides, which is backwards-compatible with EPEL 5 (which had an actual qt4-devel package), which will keep working in the future when Qt 5 will be the default and which avoids the pesky Epoch.

Now on to the next problem!

misc. hints on debugging Linux power management

Eric — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:47:28 +0000

Dump BIOS DMI table: dmidecode
Dump devkit power status: devkit-power --dump or upower --dump
Enable power manager debugging, useful before suspend: echo 1 >/sys/power/pm_trace
look at log file: /var/log/pm-suspend.log

misc. Linux notes

Eric — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:25:42 +0000

Things I’ve learned today that I’ll probably need to know later, after I’ve had a chance to forget them:

GNOME 3 was designed by idiots for idiots. They’ve tried to make it completely drool-proof, and in the process made it unusable by anyone with half a clue. Use xfce instead.
To make suspend work on 2.6.35 kernel (or newer?): put acpi_sleep=nonvs on kernel command line. Necessary for many laptops, but not all. Definitely necessary on the Sony VPCEB17FX. https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16396 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=641789
To find the UUIDs of your partitions: blkid
To display the LUKS header of an encrypted partition: cryptsetup luksDump /dev/sda6
To boot a Fedora live CD such that it all gets loaded into RAM, and the CD is ejected: add live_ram to the kernel command line.

More trouble with Radeon HD 2600 Pro AGP

Eric — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 06:08:45 +0000

When I posted Dual Head on Fedora 11 last night, I thought I had the problem completely solved, but when I booted the system this morning, the video card was acting up again. There were lots of black horizontal streaks through the display, and the server crashed in short order. Rebooting again got the same results. I’ve seen this behaviour previously with this card (VisionTek Radeon HD 2600 Pro AGP dual DVI), but since it was working OK last night I thought whatever bug had caused it was long since squashed. Apparently not.

I replaced the card with an older Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro AGP 256MB dual DVI card, and it did not exhibit the same problem. However, now when I moved windows over to the right side of the right monitor, they also overlapped the left side of the left monitor. The X server defaulted to a desktop to 2560×1600, while my side-by-side monitors need 3520×1200. Another tweak to the xorg.conf, and now it works correctly. Also, the radeon driver supplied with Fedora 11 has 3D acceleration support for the X1950, but not for the HD2600, so I’m better off with the older card for now.

The updated xorg.conf is below.


# Xorg dual-head configuration
# monitors: Samsung SyncMaster 213T and Dell 2405FPW
# card: Visiontek Radeon HD 2600 Pro 512MB AGP Dual-DVI (RV630) or
#    or Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB AGP Dual-DVI (RV570)
# Eric Smith 
# $Id: xorg.conf,v 1.2 2009/09/19 06:05:56 eric Exp eric $

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "Default Layout"
	Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
	InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# keyboard added by rhpxl
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
	Option	    "XkbModel" "pc105+inet"
	Option	    "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Videocard0"
	Driver      "radeon"
	Option	    "monitor-DVI-0" "Dell"
	Option      "monitor-DVI-1" "Samsung"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "Dell"
	# Dell 2405FPW
	# Without the PreferredMode option, the X server
	# decides to use 1600x1200.
	Option "Preferredmode" "1920x1200"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "Samsung"
	# Samsung SyncMaster 213T
	# The PreferredMode option doesn't seem to be
	# necessary here, as the X server picks
	# 1600x1200 on its own.
	# Option "Preferredmode" "1600x1200"
	Option "LeftOf" "Dell"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Videocard0"
	Monitor "Dell"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		# Without the following Virtual specification, the server
		# will default to 2560x1600 when using the Radeon X1950 card,
		# causing overlap of windows at the far right with the far
		# left.
		Virtual    3520 1200
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Dual-head on Fedora 11

Eric — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:32:12 +0000

I finally have a working dual-head configuration on Fedora 11 with a Radeon 2600 Pro AGP card and two LCD monitors. The ATI Catalyst (fglrx) binary-only driver is crashing again; I think they’ve had a regression in their AGP support for the R600 GPUs. Getting dual-head to work with the X.org radeon driver was interesting as I had to find bits and pieces of relevant information all over the place. To make a long story short, you have to create an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, because Fedora no longer creates on by default (it’s unnecessary for simple configurations), then edit it to add the second head.

One of my monitors has a native resolution of 1600×1200, and the other 1920×1200. The X server for no apparent reason defaults to 1600×1200 on both. I tried adding a modeline for the larger monitor, but it didn’t do anything. Finally I found the PreferredMode option in the xorg.conf man page, and that did the trick. My xorg.conf is below.


# Xorg dual-head configuration
# monitors: Samsung SyncMaster 213T and Dell 2405FPW
# card: Visiontek Radeon HD 2600 Pro 512MB AGP (RV630)
# Eric Smith
# $Id: xorg.conf,v 1.1 2009/09/18 10:03:47 eric Exp eric $

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "Default Layout"
	Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
	InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# keyboard added by rhpxl
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
	Option	    "XkbModel" "pc105+inet"
	Option	    "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Videocard0"
	Driver      "radeon"
	Option	    "monitor-DVI-0" "Dell"
	Option      "monitor-DVI-1" "Samsung"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "Dell"
	# Dell 2405FPW
	# Without the PreferredMode option, the X server
	# decides to use 1600x1200.
	Option "Preferredmode" "1920x1200"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "Samsung"
	# Samsung SyncMaster 213T
	# The PreferredMode option doesn't seem to be
	# necessary here, as the X server picks
	# 1600x1200 on its own.
	# Option "Preferredmode" "1600x1200"
	Option "LeftOf" "Dell"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Videocard0"
	Monitor "Dell"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Suboptimal fonts after Fedora 9 upgrade

Eric — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:02:59 +0000

Update:Â I upgraded one of my machines from Fedora 7 to Fedora 9, and it started using tiny fonts.Â Tom Horsley on the Fedora list explained that now the X server is actually using the display resolution (dots per inch) from the monitor’s EDID data to choose default font sizes.Â On NX sessions I was getting a default of 75 dpi, and changing it to 100 dpi resulted in the font sizes I expected.Â I was seeing the tiny fonts on the console as well, but I haven’t yet returned to the colo to try changing the console dpi.

Original posting below the fold.

I upgraded one of my machines from Fedora 7 to Fedora 9, and am now having font problems.Â It is using a tiny font for the system font.Â Here’s an example, using a newly created user to show that it is not a problem with a config file in a user’s home directory:

Fedora 9 upgrade fonts

I tried a fresh install of Fedora 9 in a virtual machine, and its fonts look more like what was used in earlier Fedora releases:

Fedora 9 fresh install fonts

On the upgraded system, I also can’t start emacs:

No fonts match `-adobe-courier-medium-r-*-*-12-120-75-75-*-*-*-*’

I went through the list of installed font RPMs (shown below), and don’t see anything missing compared to the fresh install in the virtual machine, so there must be a configuration problem somewhere.

Here is the output of “rpm -qa | grep -i font”:

baekmuk-ttf-fonts-common-2.2-6.fc8.noarch
cjkunifonts-uming-0.1.20060928-4.fc8.noarch
libXfont-devel-1.3.1-2.fc8.x86_64
libXfontcache-1.0.4-3.fc8.x86_64
baekmuk-ttf-fonts-gulim-2.2-6.fc8.noarch
libXfontcache-devel-1.0.4-3.fc8.x86_64
xorg-x11-fonts-Type1-7.2-3.fc8.noarch
libXfont-devel-1.3.1-2.fc8.i386
libXfontcache-1.0.4-3.fc8.i386
xorg-x11-fonts-misc-7.2-3.fc8.noarch
lohit-fonts-bengali-2.1.9-1.fc8.noarch
fontconfig-2.4.2-5.fc8.x86_64
lohit-fonts-tamil-2.1.9-1.fc8.noarch
mplayer-fonts-1.1-3.fc.noarch
fontconfig-devel-2.4.2-5.fc8.x86_64
paktype-fonts-2.0-2.fc8.noarch
jomolhari-fonts-0.003-4.fc8.noarch
xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi-7.2-3.fc8.noarch
lohit-fonts-gujarati-2.1.9-1.fc8.noarch
fontconfig-2.4.2-5.fc8.i386
bitmap-fonts-0.3-5.1.2.fc7.noarch
xorg-x11-font-utils-7.2-2.fc8.x86_64
lohit-fonts-punjabi-2.1.9-1.fc8.noarch
tetex-fonts-3.0-44.9.fc8.x86_64
libfontenc-1.0.4-4.fc8.x86_64
dejavu-lgc-fonts-2.19-1.noarch
sazanami-fonts-gothic-0.20040629-4.20061016.fc8.noarch
lklug-fonts-0.2.2-5.fc8.noarch
libXfontcache-devel-1.0.4-3.fc8.i386
xorg-x11-fonts-truetype-7.2-3.fc8.noarch
lohit-fonts-hindi-2.1.9-1.fc8.noarch
lohit-fonts-malayalam-2.1.9-1.fc8.noarch
kacst-fonts-1.6.2-2.fc8.noarch
xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi-7.2-3.fc8.noarch
fontconfig-debuginfo-2.4.2-5.fc8.x86_64
liberation-fonts-1.0-1.fc8.noarch
lohit-fonts-kannada-2.1.9-1.fc8.noarch
libfontenc-devel-1.0.4-4.fc8.x86_64
lohit-fonts-telugu-2.1.9-1.fc8.noarch
libXfont-1.3.1-2.fc8.i386
ghostscript-fonts-5.50-18.fc8.noarch
libXfont-1.3.1-2.fc8.x86_64
lohit-fonts-oriya-2.1.9-1.fc8.noarch
libfontenc-1.0.4-4.fc8.i386
mathml-fonts-1.0-21.fc6.noarch
urw-fonts-2.4-3.fc8.noarch

Skype and Teamspeak finally coexisting

Eric — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 22:06:57 +0000

I use Skype for telephony, and Teamspeak for some online games (mostly Ticket to Ride). Until now, I’ve never gotten them to peacefully coexist on my 64-bit Linux system, despite the use of the ALSA OSS emulation library.

Now, with Fedora 7, it finally works, though I’m not sure what changed. I use this little wrapper script to invoke Teamspeak:

#!/bin/sh export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/teamspeak/TeamSpeak2RC2 aoss -32 /usr/local/teamspeak/TeamSpeak2RC2/TeamSpeak.bin

Update:

It appears that I spoke too soon.Â Skype and Teamspeak seem to fight over which owns the microphone, and Teamspeak wins.Â While Teamspeak is running, Skype (native ALSA version) gets no microphone input.Â I expected that the microphone audio would go to both.Â Sigh.

Fedora 7 Rhythmbox install is brain-damaged

Eric — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:41:09 +0000

The update to Fedora 7 installed Rhythmbox.Â Perhaps it was already installed with Fedora Core 6, but I didn’t use it, and it hadn’t caused me any grief.Â But in Fedora 7, Rhythmbox registered itself as the default player for mp3 files.Â That would be fine, except that it won’t actually play mp3 files.Â It comes up with a window that says that no music was found.

I’m not sure which player I was using before, though I know it had some pieces installed from FreshRPMs, since Fedora can’t ship any MP3 player or encoder due to patents.Â That’s fine, but then the Fedora music applications like Rhythmbox shouldn’t register for the “mp3 extension”.

Filed in Red Hat Bugzilla as bug 242579

Upgraded one system to Fedora 7

Eric — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:23:09 +0000

After making a backup, I upgraded one of my computers to Fedora 7.Â The upgrade went smoothly, and I haven’t noticed any problems.Â Â The balloon theme is nicer that then Fedora Core 6 DNA theme..

GutenPrint 5.0 (formerly GimpPrint) has better support for my Epson Stylus R300 inkjet printer.

I’ll probably upgrade my laptop soon, but I don’t plan to upgrade my servers for a few months.

lcdtest now uses SCons instead of make

Eric — Thu, 24 May 2007 06:46:25 +0000

A few people reported problems caused by the “.d” dependency files created by the dependency analysis hack in the Makefile, so I’ve updated lcdtest to use SCons instead of make.Â I’ve also now made RPMs for Fedora Core 6 available (both i386 and x86_64), and submitted a review request to try to get them into the official Fedora package repository.