Some moody pics from Greece :-)

KDE 4.5 RC2 on OpenSolaris

Just some screenshots:

It feels much much snappier than KDE 4.4.5, perhaps because it's running on Qt 4.6.3, but the dbus issue is still present.

Epson Stylus Color 580

Would you expect an inkjet printer that spent 8 years unplugged in a shelf to just work?
Yeah, correct, no way.

I seemed to work correctly, with the minor detail that there was nothing printed on the paper. I put in a replacement black ink cartridge, but there was change, even after running several head cleaning routines. Suspecting clogged nozzles, I followed the guide at http://www.mk-stuff.de/artikel/epson_printhead_repair,

 and even blown air through the ink needles,

but it did not help either.

Finally, in the hope Epson keeps some secrets for their repairmen, I downloaded the Epson Service Manual

and, after getting used to previously unseen levels of English, went through the Troubleshooting section. I verified the nozzles aren't clogged, there are no airlocks, and ink is passing just fine.

So there remains a bug in the print head itself or the motherboard. For both cases the Manual suggests replacing them with spare parts :-(

I'll disassemble the printer and scavenge reusable parts, like the stepper motors and PSU.
So long, Epson, and thanks for all the fish!

Running two IPS servers on the same machine

We have an IPS server providing the KDE packages for OpenSolaris. There are bits for the stable releases, but as KDE 4.5 is approaching, I'd like to have the pre-release stuff available as well and to keep it separate. So I need to run two servers.

Somehow I thought this could be a bit complicated, but it's indeed dead simple.

First, export the configuration of the existing server:
$ svccfg export svc:/application/pkg/server > pkg.xml

Modify to suit your needs:
$ diff -u pkg.xml.orig pkg.xml
--- pkg.xml.orig 2010-07-10 01:31:21.520139723 +0200
+++ pkg.xml 2010-07-10 01:32:29.530018365 +0200
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM '/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1'>
<service_bundle type='manifest' name='export'>
- <service name='application/pkg/server' type='service' version='0'>
+ <service name='application/pkg/server-devel' type='service' version='0'>
<create_default_instance enabled='true'/>
<dependency name='fs' grouping='require_all' restart_on='none' type='service'>
<service_fmri value='svc:/system/filesystem/local'/>
@@ -38,8 +38,8 @@
<propval name='ssl_key_file' type='astring' value='none'/>
<propval name='threads' type='count' value='10'/>
<propval name='writable_root' type='astring' value=''/>
- <propval name='port' type='count' value='10000'/>
- <propval name='inst_root' type='astring' value='/export/home/test/repo'/>
+ <propval name='port' type='count' value='10001'/>
+ <propval name='inst_root' type='astring' value='/export/home/test/repo-devel'/>
</property_group>
<property_group name='pkg_secure' type='application'>
<property name='read_authorization' type='astring'/>


And import the new service:

$ pfexec svccfg import pkg.xml


Is it there? Yes it is:

$ svcs -a|grep pkg/server
online Jul_08 svc:/application/pkg/server:default
online 1:40:43 svc:/application/pkg/server-devel:default


Now I only need to initialize it:

pkgsend -s file:/export/home/test/repo-devel create-repository --set-property \
publisher.prefix=kdeips-dev-devel --set-property publisher.alias=kdeips-dev-devel


And I can start publishing into it!




So where are the fresh packages, may you ask? Being uploaded, stay tuned!

KDE 4.4.5 packages & Korona 4.4.5

KDE 4.4.5 packages for OpenSolaris are available. The primary mirror http://solaris.bionicmutton.org:10000 is known for dropping connections when download speed reaches ~100kB/s, so you might consider using the alternate mirror http://pkg.osladil.cz:30000.

As concerns changes from 4.4.4, there's nothing at all on the Solaris side, only the upstream changelog applies (a bunch of bug fixes).

Korona 4.4.5 is being uploaded to genunix.org - there are also no Solaris specific changes since Korona 4.4.3 (Korona skipped 4.4.4, as I was struggling with a bug in distro-constructor), apart from the KDE update also the following packages were bumped: amarok, boost, icu4c, konversation, libassuan, qimageblitz, qtcreator.

Several applications are starting and sometimes running slowly, most notably konqueror, this seems to be related to dbus - patches welcome.

HowTo switch from Cooker to Mandriva 2010 Spring

The release of Mandriva Linux 2010.1 is just behind the corner. I switched from MDV 2010 to Cooker (the development branch) a month ago, since it was already quite stable.
But as soon as 2010.1 is released, Cooker will reopen and become unstable again. So I'll have to return to the stable branch again.
How to do that? Fortunately other people asked that question, and here's the digest:

Once 2010.1 is official, open your Mandriva Control Center > 'Configure media sources...' and remove all from the list.
Then go to http://easyurpmi.zarb.org and add media '2010.1'. It'll generate a script that handles it all*. It might take zarb a few days before 2010.1 is listed there.

Due to bug #39975 you'll have to run:
urpmi.update -a --force-key
to avoid invalid signing key errors after the rpms are resigned with stable keys.



*or in the command line simply:
urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrorlist 'http://api.mandriva.com/mirrors/basic.2010.1.i586.list'
for x86 or:
urpmi.addmedia --distrib --mirrorlist 'http://api.mandriva.com/mirrors/basic.2010.0.x86_64.list'
for x64

Lessons Learned with a Toshiba Satellite Laptop: 10-FC12-0017 error

Sometimes repairs stop being about a quick fix and become a vendetta. This is one of those instances.

Recently, a Toshiba Satellite L305 was given to me for repair. The OS had been accidentally removed, but the person had the Vista 32-bit recovery disks. I figured no problem, I can do this in a hour.  Well, the recovery went find until disk 2 went into the recovery process and hit about 30%. I received a 10-FC12-0017 error.  A search of the net found nexperts (net experts) divided between bad recovery disks or bad hard drive.

The hard drive wasn’t acting or sounding bad. Plus ,my friend had said the only reason she ran the recovery disks originally was because the touchpad wasn’t working. It’s ok to laugh. I assumed the HDD was fine since she didn’t complain of operating issues.  So I figured it was the recovery DVD’s, as they had some serious scratches on them even after I cleaned them.

The L305 had a 64-bit processor so I figured, let me try my OEM 64-bit Vista disk.  It actually installed fine with no errors.  However, I had no valid product code and the product key on the bottom wasn’t validating.  So I knew I had to use the recovery disks.

Toshiba has quite a racket with these recovery disks. It’s $25 for a new set. I wasn’t about to go that route. 

I booted freedos off a CD and made sure all the partitions on the drive wiped before attempting a new recovery, With a raw drive, I attempted the recovery again, using the recovery disk to setup the partitions. It failed again.

At this point I was frustrated. I also think Vista sucks. I re-wiped the drive with freedos and attempted an install of windows 7 32-bit. It is what I had laying around. It failed with a “cannot install on this hardware error.”

At this point I knew something was up. I then ran CHKDSK on the drive and it took damn near 8 hours to complete.  I ran the recovery and it failed again.

So extremely frustrated, I put a spare SATA drive in it, and ran the Vista recovery disks. 

After about 14 hours of attempted recovery, the OS came to life.  So error 10-FC12-0017 on a Toshiba recovery, is a bad hard disk.  Save yourself the trouble and just replace the HDD.

What is most frustrating about this is the touchpad never did work, it was bad. The owner opted for an external mouse instead of paying to fix it.  It didn’t work during the recovery. That should have been my clue that more hardware (like the HDD) could be damaged.

And that is one of the lessons I learned.  The other lesson is, check the disk before running a recovery (something I normally do anyway for computers I don’t know the drive’s history).  The third lesson is never detour from your usual practices because you are doing a favor for someone.

I hope someone finds this helpful.

Also, if you aren’t reading this at http://beavmetal.blogspot.com, you should be.

 

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HowTo merge two IPS repositories

I wanted to merge a repository with KDE 4.4.4 packages with another one with KDE 4.4.5. First I went through the pkgsend/pkgrecv man pages but only succeeded in the pkgrecv part (pkgsend just stalled without any hint on what's going on). Then I asked at the #opensolaris IRC channel and it turned out to be really simple:

$ export TMPDIR=/var/tmp
$ pkgrecv \
-s file:///export/home/pkgserv/repo445/export/home/test/repo \
-d file:///export/home/pkgserv/repo 'pkg:/*'

Setting TMPDIR properly is quite important, because pkgrecv by default caches the files in /tmp, which is practically your RAM and the repo has ~1.6 GB ...
/export/home/pkgserv/repo445/export/home/test/repo is a directory containing repository with KDE 4.4.5
/export/home/pkgserv/repo contained KDE 4.4.4 and now contains both