Into.the.Void. » Gentoo

minor uniformity patch for smplayer

kargig — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:19:14 +0000

One of the things that good Linux applications should have is uniformity. Just like Mac OS X does. All applications should use the same keybindings to perform the same tasks. For example, on _every_ OS X application, in order to quit it you have to press “CMD+Q”, it’s that simple and everybody follows it. Everybody. On Linux though there are some applications that simply don’t care about uniformity. One of these applications is smplayer.

While it is almost standard for Linux applications to quit using Ctrl+Q, smplayer simply doesn’t have this option. It has the option of closing the current video with Ctrl+X but it doesn’t have the simple option of quitting using a keyboard shortcut.

So, the next (oneliner actually) patch does simply what I described above. It makes smplayer quit using “Ctrl+Q”.

The screenshot that shows what the patch does:

smplayer-0.6.8-quit.patch:
--- smplayer-0.6.8/src/baseguiplus.cpp 2009-08-13 16:07:04.000000000 +0300 +++ smplayer-0.6.8/src/baseguiplus.cpp 2009-08-13 16:08:22.000000000 +0300 @@ -67,8 +67,7 @@ tray->setToolTip( "SMPlayer" ); connect( tray, SIGNAL(activated(QSystemTrayIcon::ActivationReason)), this, SLOT(trayIconActivated(QSystemTrayIcon::ActivationReason))); - - quitAct = new MyAction(this, "quit"); + quitAct = new MyAction(QKeySequence("Ctrl+Q"), this, "quit"); connect( quitAct, SIGNAL(triggered()), this, SLOT(quit()) ); openMenu->addAction(quitAct);

And a patched ebuild for smplayer-0.6.8 to use this minor patch (only one line is added to the ebuild):
smplayer-0.6.8-r1.ebuild

P.S. Keybindings in smplayer can be set through Preferences, and someone could actually put Ctrl+Q as the quit shortcut but I think that this should be the default setting like most other applications have it. Uniformity matters.

Vodafone, Cosmote 3G on Linux (wvdial and umtsmon)

kargig — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:38:06 +0000

The following configs can be used when you have either Vodafone Mobile Internet or Cosmote Internet on the Go or both 3G USB sticks and you want to connect to the 3G Internet (in Greece) while using Linux. I’ll provide two ways to connect to 3G, the command line way using wvdial and the GUI way using umtsmon.

1) Using wvdial
Create /etc/wvdial.conf:
[Dialer Defaults] New PPPD = yes Dial Command = ATDT Dial Attempts = 1 Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0 Modem Type = Analog Modem ISDN = 0 #commented out see the comments on the post. #Baud = 460800 Username = user Password = pass Init1 = ATZ Init2 = AT&F E1 V1 X1 &D2 &C1 S [Dialer cosmote] Phone = *99# Stupid Mode = 1 Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","internet" [Dialer vodafone] Phone = *99# Stupid Mode = 1 Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","internet" [Dialer vfPIN] Init4 = AT+CPIN=1234 [Dialer cmPIN] Init4 = AT+CPIN=5678

WARNING: You HAVE to change the PINs on the last part of the config

To connect to Cosmote, plug in the usb stick:

# wvdial cmPIN
# wvdial cosmote

To connect to Vodafone, plug in the usb stick:

# wvdial vfPIN
# wvdial vodafone

2) Using umtsmon
Connection->Manage Profiles and create the necessary profiles with settings that look like these:

Username and Password does not really matter. Enter something like User/Pass or Username/Password.

Both versions tested on Debian and Gentoo and they are working just fine.

If someone has the Wind ADSM settings please provide them as a comment so I can complete the post with all three Greek 3G providers.

References: List of AT commands

nicotine+ 1.2.12 ebuild

kargig — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:03:22 +0000

I’ve uploaded an ebuild for the latest version of nicotine+ on gentoo’s bugzilla. Nicotine+ is a great p2p app written in PyGtK2 to connect to the Soulseek network.

I’ve also added psyco as a USE flag since it makes nicotine+ faster…but sadly, a bit more unstable as well. Test it and see if it makes any difference to you.

Ebuild: nicotine+-1.2.12.ebuild

Handling right clicks on a macbook running Linux

kargig — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:29:57 +0000

I’ve finally settled down to a solution that I am happy with. I used to have the following options inside my Xorg.conf:
Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad" Driver "synaptics" [...snip...] Option "TapButton1" "1" Option "TapButton2" "3" Option "TapButton3" "2" Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1" Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1" [...snip...]

This works like this:
i) a single tap is a left click
ii) a two-finger tap is a right click
iii) a three-finger tap is a middle click
and you could scroll horizontally and vertically using two fingers on the touchpad, like Mac OS X.
The problem with this setup is that I used to have a lot of accidental double tappings while scrolling with two fingers horizontally or vertically. This of course produced unwanted right clicks.

I wanted a solution that I could get right click in somehow like Mac OS X does it, using ctrl+tap/ctrl+click. I found a solution that emulated ctrl+click as a right click but then many applications started misbehaving. Firefox for example uses ctrl+click on Linux to open a link on a new tab, when I used ctrl+click as a right click, Firefox stopped opening the links. So I went to plan B.

CMD key(apple key)-click as a right click.

To achieve that:
a) install xvkbd.
Debian: apt-get install xvkbd
Gentoo: emerge xvkbd
b) install xbindkeys.
Debian: apt-get install xbindkeys
Gentoo: emerge xbindkeys
c) create the default .xbindkeysrc file: xbindkeys –defaults > ~/.xbindkeysrc
d) edit it and put the following inside: "xvkbd -text '\m3'" mod4 + b:1 (mouse)
e) edit xorg.conf and set this: Option "TapButton2" "0"
This effectively disables double tapping as a right click.
f) restart X
g) open a terminal and start xbindkeys from it: $ xbindkeys -n -v
Now press CMD key and tap the touchpad or click the touchpad button. You should be greeted with a fresh right click!

If all went well put xbindkeys in your DE’s autostart.

The following works flawlessly on XFCE/LXDE. CMD-click or CMD-tap opens XFCE’s menu or LXDE’s desktop menu.

On fluxbox though there is still a problem. It’s very common for fluxbox key config to look something like the following:
OnDesktop Mouse1 :hideMenus OnDesktop Mouse2 :workspaceMenu OnDesktop Mouse3 :rootMenu OnDesktop Mouse4 :nextWorkspace OnDesktop Mouse5 :prevWorkspace

So to open the RootMenu, which is the basic menu with the applications shortcuts for fluxbox, one needs to actually right click on the Desktop. That worked with TabButton2=3 but it does not work right now. To get around that problem I binded the key left to (1/!) which is normally the (±/§) key on Macs to the Menu key using xmodmap.
$ cat .xmodmap keycode 94 = Menu
I never used that key anyway…

I’ve now got my precious right click back without accidental miss-clicks. yihaa!

References: FreeBSD on an Apple MacBook

qt libraries upgrade problem for gentoo

kargig — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:35:51 +0000

To complement alex’s post upgrading Qt libraries in Gentoo with Portage, here’s what started it all. I wanted to upgrade my kpdf to the most recent version without upgrading world. So the output of emerge -1uDNavt kpdf looked like this:

[ebuild U ] kde-base/kpdf-3.5.10-r1 [3.5.9] USE="-debug (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" 6 kB [0] [nomerge ] app-mobilephone/pysmssend-1.32 USE="qt4" [?] [nomerge ] dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2 USE="X dbus opengl qt3support svg -debug -doc -examples -webkit" [0] [ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.5.1 [4.4.2] USE="accessibility -custom-cxxflags% -debug -kde% -pch -phonon%" 111,980 kB [0] [ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-sql-4.5.1 [4.4.2-r1] USE="iconv qt3support sqlite -custom-cxxflags -debug -firebird -mysql -odbc -pch -postgres" 0 kB [0] [nomerge ] kde-base/kpdf-3.5.10-r1 [3.5.9] USE="-debug (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" [0] [ebuild N ] virtual/poppler-qt3-0.10.5 0 kB [0] [nomerge ] dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2 USE="X dbus opengl qt3support svg -debug -doc -examples -webkit" [0] [ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1 [4.4.2-r3] USE="accessibility dbus glib gtkstyle%* qt3support -cups -custom-cxxflags -debug -mng -nas -nis -pch -raster% -tiff -xinerama" INPUT_DEVICES="(-wacom%)" 0 kB [0] [ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-script-4.5.1 [4.4.2] USE="iconv%* -custom-cxxflags% -debug -pch" 0 kB [0] [ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1 [4.4.2] USE="-custom-cxxflags -debug -pch" 0 kB [0] [nomerge ] dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2 USE="X dbus opengl qt3support svg -debug -doc -examples -webkit" [0] [nomerge ] x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2 USE="-debug -pch" [0] [blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [nomerge ] sys-boot/unetbootin-319 [0] [nomerge ] x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1 [4.4.2-r3] USE="accessibility dbus glib gtkstyle%* qt3support -cups -custom-cxxflags -debug -mng -nas -nis -pch -raster% -tiff -xinerama" INPUT_DEVICES="(-wacom%)" [0] [blocks b ] [nomerge ] x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2 USE="-debug -pch" [0] [blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2) [blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [blocks b ] >x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-test-4.5.1 [4.4.2] USE="iconv%* -custom-cxxflags% -debug -pch" 0 kB [0] [ebuild U ] x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1 [4.4.2-r2] USE="glib iconv qt3support ssl -custom-cxxflags -debug -doc -pch" 0 kB [0] [nomerge ] kde-base/kpdf-3.5.10-r1 [3.5.9] USE="-debug (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" [0] [ebuild U ] kde-base/kdeprint-3.5.10 [3.5.9] USE="kdehiddenvisibility -cups -debug -kde (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" 0 kB [0] [nomerge ] app-text/epdfview-0.1.6-r1 USE="-cups -nls -test" [0] [nomerge ] virtual/poppler-glib-0.10.5 USE="cairo" [0] [nomerge ] app-text/poppler-bindings-0.10.5-r1 USE="cairo gtk qt3 qt4 -test" [0] [nomerge ] app-text/poppler-0.10.5-r1 USE="-doc" [0] [ebuild U ] media-libs/openjpeg-1.3-r2 [1.3] USE="-tools" 0 kB [0] [nomerge ] kde-base/kdeprint-3.5.10 [3.5.9] USE="kdehiddenvisibility -cups -debug -kde (-arts%) (-kdeenablefinal%) (-xinerama%)" [0] [ebuild U ] app-text/enscript-1.6.4-r4 [1.6.4-r3] USE="-nls -ruby" 1,013 kB [?=>0] [nomerge ] app-pda/msynctool-0.21 [0] [nomerge ] app-pda/libopensync-0.21 USE="-debug -doc -python" [0] [ebuild U ] dev-db/sqlite-3.6.13 [3.6.11] USE="threadsafe -debug -doc -soundex -tcl" 0 kB [0] [blocks B ] [blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [blocks B ] [blocks B ] [blocks B ] [blocks B ] [blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [blocks B ] [blocks B ] [blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2) [blocks B ] [blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [blocks B ] >x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999 (">x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r9999" is blocking x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-sql-4.4.2-r1, x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-test-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2, x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2) [blocks B ] Total: 13 packages (12 upgrades, 1 new), Size of downloads: 112,998 kB Conflict: 23 blocks (16 unsatisfied) Portage tree and overlays: [0] /usr/portage [?] indicates that the source repository could not be determined * Error: The above package list contains packages which cannot be * installed at the same time on the same system. ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2', 'nomerge') pulled in by >=x11-libs/qt-svg-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge') ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by >=x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge') x11-libs/qt-gui required by ('installed', '/', 'media-video/vlc-0.9.8a', 'nomerge') x11-libs/qt-gui required by ('installed', '/', 'sys-boot/unetbootin-319', 'nomerge') (and 4 more) ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-test-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by x11-libs/qt-test:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'app-text/poppler-bindings-0.10.5-r1', 'nomerge') ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by ~x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.5.1[-debug] required by ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1', 'merge') >=x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge') ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2', 'nomerge') pulled in by >=x11-libs/qt-opengl-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge') ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by ~x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.5.1[-debug] required by ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.5.1', 'merge') >=x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge') ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2-r2', 'nomerge') pulled in by ~x11-libs/qt-core-4.4.2 required by ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-script-4.4.2', 'nomerge') x11-libs/qt-core required by ('installed', '/', 'media-video/vlc-0.9.8a', 'nomerge') x11-libs/qt-core:4[qt3support] required by ('installed', '/', 'app-admin/keepassx-0.4.0', 'nomerge') (and 7 more) ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2', 'nomerge') pulled in by >=x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge') ~x11-libs/qt-dbus-4.4.2 required by ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3', 'nomerge') ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2', 'nomerge') pulled in by ~x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2 required by ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3', 'nomerge') >=x11-libs/qt-qt3support-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge') ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns-4.4.2', 'nomerge') pulled in by x11-libs/qt-xmlpatterns:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'app-admin/keepassx-0.4.0', 'nomerge') ('installed', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2-r3', 'nomerge') pulled in by >=x11-libs/qt-gui-4.4.2:4 required by ('installed', '/', 'dev-python/PyQt4-4.4.4-r2', 'nomerge') x11-libs/qt-gui required by ('installed', '/', 'media-video/vlc-0.9.8a', 'nomerge') x11-libs/qt-gui required by ('installed', '/', 'sys-boot/unetbootin-319', 'nomerge') (and 6 more) ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1', 'merge') pulled in by ~x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1[qt3support,-debug] required by ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-sql-4.5.1', 'merge') x11-libs/qt-core:4[qt3support] required by ('installed', '/', 'app-admin/keepassx-0.4.0', 'nomerge') ~x11-libs/qt-core-4.5.1[-debug] required by ('ebuild', '/', 'x11-libs/qt-script-4.5.1', 'merge') (and 7 more)
The output is also at: http://dpaste.com/52703/
Unless you are a Gentoo Developer there is no easy way to understand the output.
So I joined #gentoo-el on Freenode to ask the greek gentoo developers (hwoarang, deathwing00, tampakrap, wired, yngwin), which happen to be on QT/KDE herds, to explain to me what’s wrong.
I was suggested to run an emerge -uDavt world to upgrade my whole system, but that’s not what I wanted and I asked for a solution that would not involve upgrading the whole system. The following is the output of emerge -uDNavt world:

http://pastebin.com/m8371430

Then they explained to me that there has been a change on QT eclass to provide protection to the system from having mixed QT versions. The problem is that the protection works by blocking the mix, but the output is at least “unfriendly”.

The solution, as alex said is to do: emerge -av1 `eix -I --only-names x11-libs/qt-`

Even though eix is a standard tool every gentoo user has probably installed, I don’t really like the solution because it depends on using another extra program, eix, and not pure portage techniques. Portage should be able, somehow, to handle these dependency problems and provide a custom error when such a problem occurs. The errors on “-9999″ versions need vast improvement.

I hope Gentoo devs do something about improving portage even more

*EDIT*
After a small conversation with alex, I completely unmerged my x11-libs/qt-4.X package. As it seems it’s not needed at all any longer since all programs correctly reference the x11-libs/qt-NAME-4.X.

lifesaving ROX tip, open file:// urls

kargig — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:17:55 +0000

Firefox has the feature of keeping links to downloaded files as urls using the file:// pattern. For example: file:///home/user/downloads/test.zip. If you choose ROX-Filer (/usr/bin/rox) to open these files you will get an error:

File doesn’t exist, or I can’t access it: file:///home/user/downloads/test.zip

One way to correct the error is to follow the instructions of http://lovingthepenguin.blogspot.com/2008/08/use-rox-filer-to-open-containing.html

Another way for Gentoo users, and much proper I guess, is to use /usr/bin/roxuri. roxuri is actually a shell script that uses the “-U” option for ROX:

-U, –url=URL open file or directory in URI form

For the non-Gentoo users, /usr/bin/roxuri is:
#!/bin/sh exec "/usr/lib/rox/ROX-Filer/AppRun" -U "$@"

Create it and make it executable.

Go to Firefox Preferences/Applications/Content Type -> file and select /usr/bin/roxuri as the default application.

Now files from firefox downloads are handled correctly by rox which uses the proper applications to open them and containing folders open up with ROX-Filer. That means that while “file” is handled by roxuri, a .pdf will be opened by epdfview or whatever else you have chosen ROX to open pdf files with.

Both solutions work on ROX version 2.8.

halevt in portage!

kargig — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:23:25 +0000

Since yesterday halevt (HAL Events Manager) and its dependency, boolstuff library are in the official Gentoo portage!
halevt on Portage
boolstuff on Portage

They only thing it took was convincing hwoarang how much they were needed since ivman is pretty much borked. At first I asked him to add them to sunrise overlay but he insisted they go straight to portage.

The original ebuilds were taken from Gentoo bugzilla: new ebuilds for halevt and boolstuff -> supersedes ivman, they were refined a bit and then added to Portage. Thanks to Mike Gualtieri for the original ebuilds.

Hwoarang has added me as the proxy maintainer of these two packages. I hope that when updates go out, I’ll test them as soon as possible and then create new ebuilds for them.

The packages are currently only in ~x86 and ~amd64 (testing) branches. If you test the packages and think that they are stable enough please let me know and I’ll try to convince hwoarang to put them to x86 and amd64 (stable) branches.

Thanks again to hwoarang! Cheers!

migrating from fluxbox 1.0.0 to 1.1.X

kargig — Sat, 30 May 2009 18:07:05 +0000

I recently upgraded from a stable fluxbox release (1.0.0) to a development one (1.1.1), on gentoo x11-wm/fluxbox-1.1.1-r1, ~x86 branch . There have been some interesting changes. If you also upgrade you might find though that your “tabs” are not working.
Recent fluxbox versions (1.1.0+) have dumped the old “groups” file which used to contain applications that could be grouped in tabs. Now the grouped applications must be declared inside the “apps” file. The syntax is rather simple, if you want an application to have tab support just add a “[group]” line before it. For example if you had a groups file that combined urxvt, xterm and aterm tabs:
% cat ~/.fluxbox/groups urxvt xterm aterm

The new proper syntax in apps file would be:
%cat ~/.fluxbox/apps [group] [app] (name=urxvt) [app] (name=xterm) [app] (name=aterm) [end]

I wrote a perl script that can convert your old groups file to the new group format for apps file. fbox_groups_to_apps.pl

Bugs reports,fixes are more than welcome…

ivman is dead, long live halevt

kargig — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:06:04 +0000

It’s been a while since ivman stopped working on my Gentoo box but I never had the time nor the willingness to take a look into it. It appears that ivman is incompatible with some newer versions of hal and dbus. The good thing is that there’s an alternative, it’s called halevt and as far as I’ve taken a look into it the configuration options look quite straightforward.
For Gentoo, there are ebuilds for halevt on Gentoo bugzilla, which install just fine.

In my point of view there’s an issue here for Gentoo. Latest ivman (sys-apps/ivman-0.6.14) compiles just fine against all of its dependencies, but then it does nothing at all when a deviced is plugged in. If the devices are present when ivman starts then it can detect and mount them, if you plug the devices after ivman is started, then ivman does nothing at all. I think ivman is broken since hal 0.5.9.X versions. Gentoo developers stll keep ivman in the stable tree though. I find no real logic to this decision. Ivman is buggy with current stable hal and dbus. I would prefer a de-stabilization of ivman or even a package mask for it. What’s the point in keeping a package (ivman) in the stable tree since it requires not the latest stable but an older version of another package (hal) ? IMHO, since they correctly decided to stabilize hal 0.5.11-r8, which subsequently rendered ivman useless, ivman should be wiped from the stable tree.
Some bugs on ivman reported on Gentoo Bugzilla: http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=ivman

I once used ivman with a couple of custom scripts to create/remove icons of automounted devices on my ROX desktop. I think I can make these scripts work again with halevt…I am in the process of rewriting them. More on that in the following days…

Fosscomm 2009

kargig — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:16:56 +0000

Μετά από ένα τρομερό Σαββατοκύριακο στη Λάρισα γυρίσα πάλι πίσω στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Το Fosscomm 2009 ήταν πάρα πολύ καλά οργανωμένο και τα παιδιά του Linux Team ΤΕΙ Λάρισας αξίζουν πολλά συγχαρητήρια για την προσπάθειά τους.

Τα παιδιά μας είχαν κλείσει ξενοδοχείο και ήταν πάρα πολύ ωραίο να μένουν 60+ άτομα που όλοι κουτσά στραβά γνωρίζονται στο ίδιο ξενοδοχείο. Θυμίζε πενταήμερη! Επίσης είχαν τυπώσει μπλουζάκια (πρόλαβα και πηρα ένα), κονκάρδες και διάφορα άλλα. Μιας και η συμμετοχή στο συνέδριο ήταν μεγάλη, θεωρώ πως μόνο το Σάββατο πρέπει να ήταν πάνω από 200 άτομα, θα είχε μεγάλο ενδιαφέρον να δούμε τις απαντήσεις στο ερωτηματολόγιο αξιολόγησης της εκδήλωσης που είχαν στο stand τους και όποιος ήθελε συμπλήρωνε.

Έξω από το επαρκέστατα εξοπλισμένο αμφιθέατρο, υπήρχαν stand με έντυπο υλικό καθώς και CD/DVD από διάφορες κοινότητες. Εκεί ήταν το Foss.Ntua, η ΕΕΛΛΑΚ, ο HELLUG, η ελληνική κοινότητα Fedora και η ελληνική κοινότητα Freebsd. Φυσικά παρόν ήταν και η ομάδα του Linux Team ΤΕΙ Λάρισας με το δικό της stand. Το κλίμα ήταν γενικώς πάρα πολύ καλό και συνάντησα πολλούς φίλους και γνωστούς που είχα μήνες να τους δω.

Θεωρώ πως οι παρουσιάσεις ήταν γενικά καλές, θα τολμήσω να πω πως ήταν ανώτερες από το επίπεδο του περσυνού Fosscomm που είχε γίνει στο Μετσόβειο, αλλά κυριώς ευχαριστήθηκα τα workshops που πέρυσι έλειπαν εντελώς. Συγχαρητήρια σε όσους κόπιασαν για να τα διοργανώσουν γιατί ένα καλό workshop είναι πολύ πιο δύσκολο από μια απλή παρουσίαση…Δυστυχώς και φέτος υπήρξαν κάποιες ακυρώσεις ομιλιών, ελπίζω του χρόνου τα πράγματα να κυλήσουν πιο ομαλά

Αν και δεν είδα όλες τις παρουσιάσεις γιατί προτίμησα να περάσω κάποιο παραπάνω χρόνο με φίλους και γνωστούς στους διαδρόμους, από όσα είδα έμεινα εντυπωσιασμένος από την δουλειά που έχει γίνει στη Σχολή Ικάρων από τον κύριο Αντώνιο Ανδρεάτο. Είμαι σίγουρος πως πολλοί καθηγητές των δικών μας πανεπιστημίων, ακόμα και από σχολές πληροφορικής, θα ντρεπόταν αν έβλεπαν τα βήματα προόδου σχετικά με τη χρήση και διάδωση ελεύθερου λογισμικού που έχουν κάνει στην Σχολή Ικάρων. Επίσης ευχαριστήθηκα πάρα πολύ την παρουσίαση του Android που έκανε ο Κώστας Πολυχρόνης. Με έψησε ακόμα περισσότερο να αποκτήσω το HTC Magic…με τσουρούφλησε θα έλεγα. Δεν θα μπορούσα να παραλείψω φυσικά το workshop και την παρουσίαση του Gentoo, που είναι και το αγαπημένο μου distribution, και έγινε από φίλους. Επίσης το Xen workshop, από την κοινότητα ανοιχτού λογισμικού του Πανεπιστημίου Πειραιά, με έβαλε και πάλι σε σκέψεις για να αρχίζω να πειραματίζομαι ξανά με το xen. Η κοινότητα αυτή μας είχε κανει πέρυσι (2007-2008) την τιμή να ανοίξουμε (εγώ και ο Fuzz) μια σειρά από εκδηλώσεις/παρουσιάσεις που ακολούθησαν και μάλιστα βράβευσαν το iloog ως το καλύτερο ελληνικό open source project για το 2008 στην περσινή DTE!

Είμαι επίσης πολύ χαρούμενος που αρκετός κόσμος με ρωτούσε τι γίνεται με το iloog και αν θα βγει ξανά καινούργια έκδοση. Μου έδωσαν ώθηση να συνεχίσω να ασχολούμαι μαζί του και υπόσχομαι να βγάλω μια έκδοση μέσα στους επόμενους μήνες. Ελπίζω φυσικά σε αυτό να βοηθήσουν και κάποιοι άλλοι …αν έχουν ακόμα όρεξη (στραβοκοιτάζω προς τον Fuzz και τον comzeradd αν δεν το έχουν ήδη καταλάβει)….

Το highlight του σαββατοκύριακου όμως ήταν η έξοδος μας το σάββατο το βράδυ. Τα παιδιά του ΤΕΙ Λάρισας ήρθαν και μας πήραν από το ξενοδοχείο και ένα τεράστιο τσούρμο 50+ ανθρώπων περπατούσαμε μέσα στην Λάρισα για να φτάσουμε τελικά σε ένα τσιπουράδικο. Εκεί οι φωτογραφίες, που θα αρχίσουν φαντάζομαι να δημοσιεύονται σε λίγες μέρες, θα μαρτυρύσουν το τι έγινε

Τι μου άρεσε:
α) Η οργάνωση
β) Κάποιες παρουσιάσεις και κυρίως τα workshops
γ) Που είδα φίλους και γνωστούς

Τι δεν μου άρεσε:
α) Που φέτος ήρθαν λιγότεροι Αθηναίοι…
β) Που κάποιες παρουσιάσεις ακυρώθηκαν για λόγους που δεν ανακοινώθηκαν (δεν αναφέρομαι προφανώς σε εκείνους που τους έτυχε κάτι έκτακτο…)

Τι θα ήθελα για του χρόνου:
α) Αντί για 10 παρουσιάσεις κοινοτήτων θα προτιμούσα ένα session με εκπροσώπους από όλες τις κοινότητες σε ένα panel, όπου για 1h να μας παρουσιάσουν τα των μελών τους. Δεν χρειάζεται η κάθε κοινότητα να μας λέει πόσα μέλη έχει στο forum/mailing lists/etc σε ξεχωριστή παρουσίαση. Αυτό μπορεί να γίνει από όλους μαζί…
β) Περισσότερα projects από τις κοινότητες. Προσωπικά με ενδιαφέρει περισσότερο να δω ότι ένα άτομο από την τάδε κοινότητα ξεκίνησε κάτι και τον βοήθησαν οι υπόλοιποι παρά να βλέπω ότι 1500 καινούρια μέλη γράφτηκαν στο forum τους.
γ) Καλύτερη παρουσίαση όχι τόσο των events της κάθε κοινότητας αλλά περισσότερο του τρόπου με τον οποίο τα οργάνωσαν. Αυτό λείπει κυρίως, έλλειψη οργάνωσης και εκεί θέλουν βοήθεια οι περισσότερες κοινότητες (αλλά και οι σύλλογοι).
δ) Ακόμα περισσότερα workshops.

Το Linux Team ΤΕΙ Λάρισας ανέβασε πολύ ψηλά τον πήχη αλλά ελπίζω το επόμενο Fosscomm, το Fosscomm 2010, όπου και να γίνει, να είναι ακόμα καλύτερο!

Συγχαρητήρια και πάλι

upgrading a gentoo box that hasn’t been upgraded since 2007

kargig — Tue, 12 May 2009 09:13:37 +0000

I was given root today in a gentoo box that nobody had upgraded since 2007. As expected the “emerge –sync; emerge -uDavt world” showed a lot of blockages.

I tried to solve each one but I got stuck while trying to upgrade portage 2.1.3.9 to 2.1.6.11. In order to upgrade portage I had to upgrade sandbox, but sandbox couldn’t be ugraded correctly due to portage 2.1.3.9 being unable to handle .tar.lzma files.
The box had sandbox-1.2 installed and it was unable to upgrade to sandbox-1.6. The error was:

unpack sandbox-1.6.tar.lzma: file format not recognized. Ignoring.

Upgrading lzma-utils, tar and a few other packages did not work. In the end I edited the sandbox-1.6-r2.ebuild and changed the src_unpack function from:
src_unpack() { unpack ${A} cd "${S}" epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${P}-disable-qa-static.patch epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${P}-disable-pthread.patch epatch "${FILESDIR}"/0001-libsandbox-handle-more-at-functions.patch }

To:
src_unpack() { unpack ${A} cd /var/tmp/portage/sys-apps/sandbox-1.6-r2/ tar --lzma -xvf sandbox-1.6.tar.lzma mv sandbox-1.6/ work/ cd "${S}" epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${P}-disable-qa-static.patch epatch "${FILESDIR}"/${P}-disable-pthread.patch epatch "${FILESDIR}"/0001-libsandbox-handle-more-at-functions.patch }

Then:
cd /usr/portage/sys-apps/sandbox/; ebuild sandbox-1.6-r2.ebuild manifest

After this edit, sandbox emerged properly, so portage emerged properly too. Everything else worked as expected…

HOWTO remotely install debian over gentoo without physical access

kargig — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:21:46 +0000

The Task
Last year, me and comzeradd set up a Gentoo server for HELLUG according to our plot to help Gentoo conquer the world. Unfortunately Gentoo is out of HELLUG’s administration policy, all servers must be Debian. We didn’t know that, so after a small flame , we decided that we should take back the server to somebody’s home and re-install Debian over it, the problem was that the server was located at University of Athens campus which is a bit far from downtown Athens where comzeradd lives. I also live 500km away so we were pretty much stuck. Months passed and nobody actually had enough free time to go to UOA’s campus and take the server to their house. …In the meantime manji joined us as an extra root for the server.

One Saturday night while chatting at IRC (what else could we be doing on saturday night ??) we had an inspiration, why not install Debian remotely, without taking the server home. Even if everything got eventually borked it couldn’t get any worse than going there, taking the server home and fixing it, just like we would do any way. So we gathered on a new IRC channel with some more friends that are really good with Debian and started the conversion progress.

The Server
The interesting part about the server was that it had 2×250Gb IDE disks. The Gentoo setup had these disks partitioned to 4 software raid devices + swap partitions.

(Gentoo) # fdisk -l Disk /dev/hda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x431bd7b7 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 6 48163+ fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/hda2 7 130 996030 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/hda3 131 27964 223576605 fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/hda4 27965 30401 19575202+ 5 Extended /dev/hda5 27965 29183 9791586 fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/hda6 29184 30401 9783553+ fd Linux raid autodetect Disk /dev/hdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hdb1 * 1 6 48163+ fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/hdb2 7 130 996030 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/hdb3 131 27964 223576605 fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/hdb4 27965 30401 19575202+ 5 Extended /dev/hdb5 27965 29183 9791586 fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/hdb6 29184 30401 9783553+ fd Linux raid autodetect

md1 was RAID1 with hda1+hdb1 for /boot/
md3 was RAID1 with hda3+hdb3 for /
md5 was RAID1 with hda5+hdb5 for /var/db/
md6 was RAID0 with hda6+hdb6 for /usr/portage/

SUMMARY
What we had to do was:
A)break all RAID1 and RAID0 devices, set all hdbX partitions as faulty and remove them from the RAID.
B)repartition hdb, create new RAID1 arrays with LVM on top and format the new partitions
C)install debian on hdb
D)configure grub to boot debian

HOWTO
In order to be extra cautious for every command we gave we all logged in inside Gentoo and one of us set up a “screen” and the others joined that screen session using # screen -x

Now everything that one typed could be seen realtime by all the others.
PART A) RAID Manipulation
Check the status of the raid devices: cat /proc/mdstat
Copy /usr/portage/ to / as /usr/portage2 so that we can completely delete md6 (RAID0).
(Gentoo) # mkdir /usr/portage2/ (Gentoo) # cp -rp /usr/portage/* /usr/portage2/ (Gentoo) # umount /usr/portage (Gentoo) # mv /usr/portage2 /usr/portage (Gentoo) # mdadm --stop /dev/md6
Reminder: There’s no need to mdadm --remove /dev/md6 /dev/hdb6 since RAID0 can’t live with only one disk. The mdadm –remove command does nothing at all for RAID0.

We continued by breaking the rest of the RAID1 arrays.
(Gentoo) # mdadm --set-faulty /dev/md1 /dev/hdb1 (Gentoo) # mdadm --remove /dev/md1 /dev/hdb1 (Gentoo) # mdadm --set-faulty /dev/md3 /dev/hdb3 (Gentoo) # mdadm --remove /dev/md3 /dev/hdb3 (Gentoo) # mdadm --set-faulty /dev/md5 /dev/hdb5 (Gentoo) # mdadm --remove /dev/md5 /dev/hdb5

Checked on the current RAID status. Every RAID array should have been failed and with only one disk:
(Gentoo) # cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid0] [raid1] md1 : active raid1 hda1[0] 48064 blocks [2/1] [U_] md3 : active raid1 hda3[0] 223576512 blocks [2/1] [U_] md5 : active raid1 hda5[0] 9791488 blocks [2/1] [U_] done

We were now ready to repartition /dev/hdb.
PART B) Repartition hdb
(Gentoo) # fdisk hdb
Created 3 partitions: a) 128Mb for /boot, b) 1Gb for Swap and c) the rest for LVM
In order to re-read the partition table we issue:
(Gentoo) # hdparm -z /dev/hdb
Check if everything is OK
(Gentoo) # cat /proc/partitions | grep hdb

PART C) Install Debian on /dev/hdb
We first had to install the proper tools to do that. In order to create LVM partitions we needed the lvm userspace tools:
(Gentoo) # emerge -avt lvm2
Then we needed to install the tools to create the Debian system, the package is called debootstrap.
(Gentoo) # emerge -avt debootstrap
Created the new RAID1 arrays:
(Gentoo) # mdadm --create /dev/md11 --level=1 -n 2 /dev/hdb1 missing (Gentoo) # mdadm --create /dev/md12 --level=1 -n 2 /dev/hdb2 missing (Gentoo) # mdadm --create /dev/md13 --level=1 -n 2 /dev/hdb3 missing
Checked the new RAID arrays:
(Gentoo) # cat /proc/mdstat
Created some basic LVM partitions on top of md13. We didn’t use the whole space of hdb3 because we are going to create more partitions when and where we need to in the future:
(Gentoo) # pvcreate /dev/md13 (Gentoo) # vgcreate local /dev/md13 (Gentoo) # vgdisplay (Gentoo) # lvcreate -n root -L 10G local (Gentoo) # lvcreate -n tmp -L 2G local (Gentoo) # lvcreate -n home -L 20G local

Formatted the LVM partitions and mounted them someplace.
(Gentoo) # mkfs.ext2 /dev/md11 (Gentoo) # mkfs.ext3 /dev/local/root (Gentoo) # mkfs.ext3 /dev/local/home (Gentoo) # mkfs.ext3 /dev/local/tmp (Gentoo) # tune2fs -c 0 -i 0 /dev/local/root (Gentoo) # tune2fs -c 0 -i 0 -m 0 /dev/local/home (Gentoo) # tune2fs -c 0 -i 0 /dev/local/tmp (Gentoo) # mkdir /mnt/newroot (Gentoo) # mkdir /mnt/newroot/{boot,home,tmp} (Gentoo) # mount /dev/local/root /mnt/newroot/ (Gentoo) # mount /dev/md11 /mnt/newroot/boot/ (Gentoo) # mount /dev/local/home /mnt/newroot/home/ (Gentoo) # mount /dev/local/tmp /mnt/newroot/tmp/

Then it was time to install Debian on /mnt/newroot using debootstrap:
(Gentoo) # debootstrap --arch=amd64 lenny /mnt/newroot/ http://ftp.ntua.gr/debian

After a while, when it was over we chrooted to the Debian install:
(Gentoo) # cd /mnt/newroot/ (Gentoo) # mount -o bind /dev dev/ (Gentoo) # mount -t proc proc proc (Gentoo) # chroot . /bin/bash (Debian) #

We created the network config,
(Debian) # vi /etc/network/interfaces (contents) auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address X.Y.Z.W netmask 255.255.255.240 gateway A.B.C.D auto lo iface lo inet loopback (/contents)

We fixed /etc/apt/sources.list:
(Debian) # vim /etc/apt/sources.list (contents) deb http://ftp.ntua.gr/debian lenny main contrib non-free deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile lenny/volatile main contrib non-free deb http://ftp.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/debian-security/ lenny/updates main contrib deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib (/contents)

We upgraded the current system and installed various usefull packages.
(Debian) # aptitude update (Debian) # aptitude full-upgrade (Debian) # aptitude install locales (Debian) # vi /etc/locale.gen (contents) el_GR ISO-8859-7 el_GR.UTF-8 UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 (/contents) (Debian) # locale-gen (Debian) # aptitude install openssh-server (Debian) # aptitude install linux-image-2.6.26-1-amd64 (Debian) # aptitude install lvm2 mdadm (Debian) # aptitude purge citadel-server exim4+ (Debian) # aptitude purge libcitadel1 (Debian) # aptitude install grub less (Debian) # vi /etc/kernel-img.conf (contents) do_symlinks = Yes do_initrd = yes postinst_hook = update-grub postrm_hook = update-grub (/contents) (Debian) # vi /etc/hosts (Debian) # vi /etc/fstab (contents) proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/local/root / ext3 defaults,noatime 0 0 /dev/local/tmp /tmp ext3 defaults,noatime,noexec 0 0 /dev/local/home /home ext3 defaults,noatime 0 0 /dev/md11 /boot ext2 defaults 0 0 /dev/md12 none swap sw 0 0 (/contents) (Debian) # update-initramfs -u -k all (Debian) # passwd

And we logged out of Debian to go back to Gentoo to fix grub.
PART D) Configure Grub on Gentoo (hda) to boot Debian /em>
Since we didn’t have physical access to the server we had to boot Debian by using Grub on hda, where Gentoo’s Grub was.
We copied the kernel from debian:
(Gentoo) # cp /mnt/newroot/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-amd64 /boot/ (Gentoo) # cp /mnt/newroot/boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-1-amd64 /boot/
We edited grub config to add an entry for debian and set it as default! Otherwise the system would reboot back to Gentoo.
(Gentoo) # vi /boot/grub/menu.lst (contents) default 1 fallback 0 timeout 10 title=Gentoo root(hd0,0) kernel /gentoo-kernel ........ initrd /gentoo-initrd title=debian (hdb) root(hd1,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/local-root ro initrd /initrd.img-2.6.26-1-amd64 (/contents)

Then we unmounted all partitions from /mnt/newroot/, we crossed our fingers and rebooted!
Voila! We could ssh to our new debian install And there was much rejoicing…

What was left to be done, was to mount the old RAID arrays of Gentoo (md1,md3) take backups of configs and place them inside Debian. Then we could kill the old RAID arrays entirely, recreate partitions on hda and add those to RAID arrays of Debian (md11,md12,md13). Of course there should be special attention to re-install grub seperately on hda and hdb!!

Debian-izing the disk with the Gentoo
After a couple of days I decided to move on, kill Gentoo completely and make Debian use both disks.
First thing I did was to stop the old RAID1 arrays.
(Debian) # mdadm --stop /dev/md6 (Debian) # mdadm --stop /dev/md3 (Debian) # mdadm --stop /dev/md1
Then I repartitioned /dev/sda (the Debian kernel uses the modules that all disks appear as /dev/sdX) and created partitions the same size as /dev/sdb’s.:
(Debian) # fdisk /dev/sda
That was the point of no-return

There’s a risk involved here. The original sda1 was 64Mb and the newer sdb1 was 128Mb. I couldn’t add sda1 to md11 without extending the sda1 partition. If completely scratched /dev/sda1 to create a new partition of 128Mb in size and a power failure occurred while this process was going on, the server could become unbootable, because it wouldn’t find a proper sda1 to boot from. If someone wanted to minimize that risk, he would have to repartition sda, extend sda1 to the size of sdb1, extend the old /dev/md1 to fit the new sda1 size and extend the fs beneath it. Of course there is still a problem of what would happend if a power failure occured while extending the fs…so I chose to skip that “risk” and pretend it’s not there

Re-read the partition table:
(Debian) # hdparm -z /dev/sda
Add the new partitions to the Debian RAID1 arrays.
The first array I fixed was the /boot RAID1 array because it would only take some seconds to sync and minimizes the risk of a power failure while there’s no boot manager on the MBR and the rest of partitions are still syncing:
(Debian) # mdadm --add /dev/md11 /dev/sda1
When the sync is over I installed Grub on both sda1 and sdb1:
(Debian) # grub grub> device (hd0) /dev/sda grub> root (hd0,0) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd grub> setup (hd0) Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes [...snip...] grub> quit (Debian) # grub grub> device (hd1) /dev/sdb grub> root (hd1,0) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd grub> setup (hd1) Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes [...snip...] grub> quit

Then we fix the rest RAID1 arrays:
(Debian) # mdadm --add /dev/md12 /dev/sda2 (Debian) # mdadm --add /dev/md13 /dev/sda3
The last sync took a while (approx 1h).

Make some final checks:
a) Check that grub is installed on every disk’s MBR
(Debian) # dd if=/dev/sda of=test.file bs=512 count=1 1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 5.4721e-05 s, 9.4 MB/s (Debian) # grep -i grub test.file Binary file test.file matches (Debian) # dd if=/dev/sdb of=test2.file bs=512 count=1 1+0 records in 1+0 records out 512 bytes (512 B) copied, 5.4721e-05 s, 9.4 MB/s (Debian) # grep -i grub test2.file Binary file test2.file matches

b) Make sure you have the correct entries in grub config:
(Debian) # cat /boot/grub/menu.lst default 0 timeout 10 title=debian root(hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/local-root ro initrd /initrd.img-2.6.26-1-amd64

c) Check the RAID1 arrays
(Debian) # cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid0] [raid1] md13 : active raid1 sdb3[0] sda3[1] 243071360 blocks [2/2] [UU] md12 : active (auto-read-only) raid1 sdb2[0] sda2[1] 987904 blocks [2/2] [UU] md11 : active raid1 sdb1[0] sda1[1] 136448 blocks [2/2] [UU] unused devices:

That’s all. Only a reboot will show whether everything went right.
Good luck!

P.S. The struggle of Gentoo taking over the world is not over. We may have lost a battle but we haven’t lost the war!

References:
a) HOWTO – Install Debian Onto a Remote Linux System
Pretty old but was the base of our efforts
b) RAID1 on Debian Sarge
c) growing ext3 partition on RAID1 without rebooting
d) Remote Conversion to Linux Software RAID-1 for Crazy Sysadmins HOWTO
e) Gentoo LVM2 installation

commandlinefu.com random entry parser

kargig — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:28:54 +0000

I’ve written a small perl script to parse random entries from the extremely usefull commandlinefu.com website. Quoting from their site:

Command-Line-Fu is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again.

The script code is very “clean”. I can almost say that it’s written in a very python-ish way.
Sample output:%./cfu.pl CMD: for (( i = 0; i < 100; i++ )); do echo "$i"; done URL=http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/735/perform-a-c-style-loop-in-bash. Title=Perform a C-style loop in Bash. Description: Print 0 through 99, each on a separate line. %./cfu.pl CMD: rsync -av -e ssh user@host:/path/to/file.txt . URL=http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/20/synchronise-a-file-from-a-remote-server Title=Synchronise a file from a remote server Description: You will be prompted for a password unless you have your public keys set-up.

You can get it from here: commandlinefu.com random entry parser perl script

As far as I’ve tested, it works out of the box on default perl installations of Debian, Gentoo and Mac OS X.

Severely degraded harddisk performance on sata_sil by athcool

kargig — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 07:47:05 +0000

I am writing this post to provide some statistics on athcool + sata_sil usage. The results are horrible.

Athcool is a small utility, enabling/disabling Powersaving mode for AMD Athlon/Duron processors.
The homepage of the utility has a big fat warning as well:

WARNING: Depending on your motherboard and/or hardware components, enabling powersaving mode may cause:

* noisy or distorted sound playback
* a slowdown in harddisk performance
* system locks or instability

The Gentoo ebuild also has these warnings:

ewarn “WARNING: Depending on your motherboard and/or hardware components,”
ewarn “enabling powersaving mode may cause:”
ewarn ” * noisy or distorted sound playback”
ewarn ” * a slowdown in harddisk performance”
ewarn ” * system locks or unpredictable behavior”
ewarn ” * file system corruption”
ewarn “If you met those problems, you should not use athcool. Please use”
ewarn “athcool AT YOUR OWN RISK!”

Ignoring all these warning
Here are some tests using 1) athcool off
a) dd to IDE
(TERMINAL 1) user@box:~% procs -----------memory---------- 0 0 0 392296 19272 663892 1 0 0 813648 19344 245960 0 1 0 769380 19388 289680 0 2 0 769876 19388 290704 0 3 0 708372 19460 351120 0 1 0 674272 19492 383928 0 1 0 655796 19508 401744 0 1 0 588712 19572 466880 1 1 0 579412 19584 478072 0 2 0 504516 19664 550856 1 0 0 453800 19712 600040 0 1 0 414740 19748 637952 0 1 0 367248 19792 684064 1 1 0 360552 19804 693280 2 1 0 268668 19896 782368 2 1 0 230724 19932 819248 1 1 0 184224 19976 864328 0 1 0 142932 20016 904288 1 1 0 136608 20032 913928 0 1 0 46708 20120 1000568 0 1 0 26508 14348 1025136 0 1 0 23404 13368 1028324 0 1 4 23776 11816 1028108 1 1 4 24024 11000 1031428 0 0 4 23652 11028 1032324 0 0 4 23776 11028 1032324 (TERMINAL 2) user@box:~%dd 1000000+0 records in
1000000+0 records out
1024000000 bytes (1.0 GB)
Pretty decent performace. I was using athcool for years on my old desktop box filled with 2 IDE disks. Never had any real problem at all, except for a some performance loss. The problem appeared when I first used a sata disk on motherboard’s, Gigabyte GA-7VAXP-A Ulta, sata controller which uses the sata_sil module.
dd and vmstat. The two commands were run on different terminals at the same time:
/> vmstat 1
---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
0 0 0 56 260 332 0 0 100 0
0 0 4 64604 486 849 4 58 14 24
0 0 0 44032 399 890 3 30 0 67
0 0 0 4 368 594 1 3 0 96
0 0 0 40632 347 589 2 46 0 52
0 0 0 53936 471 821 1 27 0 72
0 0 0 17640 376 651 1 13 0 86
0 0 0 65544 469 1024 9 40 0 51
0 0 0 6148 368 852 5 8 0 87
0 0 0 79104 414 817 3 52 0 45
0 0 0 45420 350 616 4 30 0 66
0 0 0 40872 401 700 3 26 0 71
0 0 0 46112 357 619 5 32 0 63
0 0 0 7240 421 795 2 8 0 90
0 0 0 84768 385 722 5 65 0 30
0 0 0 43672 378 598 2 27 0 71
0 0 0 45080 349 587 5 27 0 68
0 0 0 39960 369 653 1 33 0 66
0 0 0 6400 337 523 2 11 0 87
0 0 0 90360 387 626 4 61 0 35
0 0 0 44048 346 633 1 29 0 70
0 0 0 42016 363 638 2 26 0 72
0 0 0 43048 336 631 0 30 0 70
0 0 0 26796 391 663 4 25 0 71
0 0 0 16836 336 648 2 14 18 66
0 0 0 0 278 397 1 0 99 0
if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/parition/on/IDE/disk/file bs=1024 count=1000000
copied, 22.8884 s, 44.7 MB/s

b) dd to SATA
(TERMINAL 1) user@box:~% vmstat 1 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- 0 0 4 738008 21872 317948 0 0 0 0 308 427 2 0 98 0 0 0 4 738008 21880 317948 0 0 0 48 268 342 0 1 99 0 3 0 4 722508 21916 334312 0 0 4 8456 320 491 3 11 84 2 1 0 4 647612 22008 407372 0 0 0 80844 374 762 9 52 0 39 0 1 4 624796 22032 429996 0 0 0 22528 389 465 0 17 0 83 1 0 4 557836 22096 495032 0 0 0 64520 361 395 3 50 0 47 1 0 4 512576 22136 539012 0 0 0 44032 386 548 5 33 0 62 0 2 4 473640 22176 579080 0 0 0 38916 353 488 2 31 0 67 2 0 4 448220 22220 605548 0 0 0 23156 399 434 3 20 0 77 0 1 4 381880 22280 669192 0 0 0 60492 353 374 2 48 0 50 1 0 4 331784 22328 717848 0 0 0 49272 388 431 3 36 0 61 1 2 4 286648 22372 761716 0 0 0 43120 345 366 4 33 0 63 0 3 4 249696 22408 799240 0 0 0 46832 391 437 2 30 0 68 1 3 4 212124 22448 837352 0 0 0 28460 351 446 3 29 0 68 0 2 4 161160 22496 886304 0 0 0 58856 439 479 3 39 0 58 0 2 4 115652 22540 930336 0 0 0 44032 355 523 2 32 0 66 0 2 4 68036 22584 976416 0 0 0 46080 426 699 6 32 0 62 1 1 4 22548 22628 1020476 0 0 0 44028 366 590 15 29 0 56 2 2 4 23032 22672 1019420 0 0 0 42012 386 1082 40 36 0 24 0 2 4 24272 20772 1019388 0 0 0 45116 360 779 16 36 0 48 1 1 184 23652 16948 1022416 0 0 0 33968 365 446 20 30 0 50 0 2 184 23280 16668 1022620 0 0 0 50188 369 505 3 35 0 62 0 2 184 24520 16688 1020540 0 4 0 44036 376 458 9 36 0 55 0 2 184 27868 16632 1022072 0 0 0 25908 459 441 5 19 0 76 1 1 184 23652 6796 1036996 0 0 0 37820 386 472 3 30 0 67 0 0 184 24520 6084 1037356 0 0 0 16580 342 424 4 15 1 80 0 0 184 24644 6084 1037356 0 0 0 0 294 374 1 0 99 0 (TERMINAL 2) user@box:~%dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/parition/on/SATA/disk/file bs=1024 count=1000000 1000000+0 records in 1000000+0 records out 1024000000 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 22.2838 s, 46.0 MB/s
Sata was a bit faster, as expected.

2) athcool on
a) dd to IDE
(TERMINAL 1) user@box:~% vmstat 1 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 2 0 184 119536 7040 942204 0 0 119 2047 300 740 8 3 82 7 0 0 184 119536 7040 942204 0 0 0 0 290 711 4 0 96 0 1 2 184 103292 7092 958828 0 0 16 4496 413 685 2 13 82 3 0 1 184 67828 7124 993432 0 0 0 46884 612 1149 2 30 0 68 0 1 184 54188 7136 1006756 0 0 0 13312 552 878 2 12 0 86 0 1 184 22908 7196 1036576 0 0 0 62472 447 1007 7 50 0 43 0 1 184 24644 7224 1034272 0 0 0 24428 459 739 1 27 0 72 0 3 184 25760 7236 1034740 0 0 0 4392 499 732 2 10 0 88 1 3 184 23652 7284 1036484 0 0 0 42900 536 977 3 39 0 58 1 4 184 25140 7308 1034448 0 0 0 41144 470 861 3 19 0 78 0 2 184 24636 7340 1034084 0 0 12 33816 466 797 4 26 0 70 0 2 184 25256 7340 1034084 0 0 0 0 447 605 2 3 0 95 0 2 184 22904 7424 1035360 0 0 4 73032 466 848 6 58 0 36 0 2 184 23272 7452 1036132 0 0 0 23308 458 786 3 27 0 70 0 2 184 24144 7500 1035644 0 0 0 46364 478 800 7 35 0 58 0 2 184 25132 7560 1034492 0 0 0 23356 441 673 2 16 0 82 0 2 184 25752 7560 1034492 0 0 0 0 502 728 1 0 0 99 0 1 184 23768 7632 1034748 0 0 0 74820 407 778 6 57 0 37 0 2 184 23644 7672 1035388 0 0 0 41016 465 829 5 30 0 65 0 2 184 23272 7712 1036284 0 0 0 39216 448 744 3 31 0 66 0 1 184 23148 7752 1035900 0 0 0 37084 535 1120 3 29 0 68 0 1 184 23024 7800 1035420 0 0 0 46112 435 724 3 34 0 63 0 1 184 23024 6900 1035472 0 0 0 34832 480 737 5 24 0 71 1 1 184 23024 6660 1036344 0 0 0 28956 450 759 2 30 0 68 1 1 184 24016 6592 1035540 0 0 0 37108 483 873 2 27 0 71 0 1 184 23396 6636 1036104 0 180 0 46644 420 874 6 34 0 60 1 0 196 23148 6668 1036156 0 0 0 37896 473 812 5 29 0 66 0 1 196 23272 6712 1035412 0 0 0 45064 409 709 2 34 0 64 1 1 196 23148 6720 1037232 0 0 0 356 471 637 2 7 0 91 0 2 196 23648 6744 1036236 0 0 0 48400 433 893 3 34 0 63 0 1 196 23396 6276 1036672 0 0 0 46100 462 1001 4 33 0 63 0 0 196 24016 6280 1036672 0 0 0 4 445 586 1 2 75 22 0 0 196 24388 6280 1036672 0 0 0 0 358 475 1 3 96 0 0 0 196 24388 6280 1036672 0 0 0 0 272 362 1 0 99 0 (TERMINAL 2) user@box:~% dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/parition/on/IDE/disk/file bs=1024 count=1000000 1000000+0 records in 1000000+0 records out 1024000000 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 28.1283 s, 36.4 MB/s
Hello degraded performace! 44.7Mb/s -> 36.4MB/s. This is a 18.57% drop. Still I consider it quite acceptable for a desktop pc.

a) dd to SATA
(TERMINAL 1) user@box:~% vmstat 1 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 2 0 196 1031508 5284 43612 0 0 94 2389 310 715 8 3 77 12 0 0 196 1031508 5284 43612 0 0 0 0 312 662 5 0 95 0 1 0 196 966284 5284 107512 0 0 0 63484 343 457 6 48 15 31 0 1 196 959588 5284 114240 0 0 0 7168 403 694 4 6 0 90 0 1 196 952272 5284 121408 0 0 0 7168 371 610 4 8 0 88 0 1 196 944956 5284 128572 0 0 0 7164 420 478 2 6 0 92 1 1 196 918544 5324 151464 0 0 376 22652 429 1713 18 27 0 55 0 2 196 917924 5324 152488 0 0 0 1048 416 649 2 3 0 95 0 2 196 918048 5324 152488 0 0 0 16 392 540 0 0 0 100 0 2 196 917552 5336 152648 0 0 172 20 435 780 2 0 0 98 0 2 196 917676 5336 152648 0 0 0 0 372 491 0 0 0 100 0 2 196 917800 5344 152648 0 0 0 60 404 559 3 0 0 97 0 2 196 917924 5344 152648 0 0 0 20 380 620 2 1 0 97 0 2 196 918172 5344 152648 0 0 0 28 416 966 6 1 0 93 0 2 196 918296 5344 152648 0 0 0 16 369 356 2 0 0 98 0 2 196 918420 5344 152648 0 0 0 16 401 384 0 1 0 99 0 1 196 850840 5360 219204 0 0 0 66884 467 696 3 51 0 46 0 1 196 845384 5368 224324 0 0 0 5136 419 520 3 1 0 96 0 1 196 836952 5368 232512 0 0 0 8188 385 742 4 5 0 91 0 1 196 831744 5368 237632 0 0 0 5120 426 489 0 1 0 99 0 1 196 825420 5368 243776 0 0 0 6144 422 600 0 1 0 99 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 1 2 196 819064 5368 245824 0 0 0 2096 417 1427 29 6 0 65 0 2 196 823560 5368 245824 0 0 0 20 494 1913 16 4 0 80 0 2 196 823808 5376 245824 0 0 0 28 480 1719 8 2 0 90 0 1 196 758336 5384 310328 0 0 0 64800 423 1204 24 53 0 23 [snip] 0 2 196 104236 5628 954752 0 0 0 8 405 745 2 2 0 96 0 2 196 43600 5640 1013984 0 0 0 59740 453 815 4 44 0 52 0 2 196 29712 5640 1027300 0 0 0 13320 403 758 3 5 0 92 0 2 196 23892 5640 1032852 0 0 0 9220 430 693 4 4 0 92 0 1 196 22776 3892 1035820 0 0 0 7184 402 728 5 1 0 94 0 1 196 22776 3892 1035820 0 0 0 0 451 1172 5 3 0 92 0 1 196 22776 3892 1035820 0 0 0 0 386 813 2 1 0 97 0 1 196 22776 3896 1035820 0 0 0 4 412 385 0 0 0 100 0 1 196 22776 3896 1035820 0 0 0 4 358 320 0 0 0 100 0 1 196 25380 3896 1032748 0 0 0 0 416 722 7 1 0 92 0 1 196 25504 3904 1032748 0 0 0 16 365 404 2 2 0 96 0 1 196 25628 3904 1032748 0 0 0 0 396 471 1 1 0 98 0 1 196 25876 3904 1032748 0 0 0 0 364 526 6 0 0 94 0 0 196 26992 3912 1032748 0 0 0 968 395 1288 14 3 55 28 procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 0 1 196 26992 3912 1032748 0 0 0 4 323 1412 13 1 86 0 0 0 196 26992 3920 1032748 0 0 0 12 379 1755 16 1 83 0 (TERMINAL 2) user@box:~%dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/parition/on/SATA/disk/file bs=1024 count=1000000 1000000+0 records in 1000000+0 records out 1024000000 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 114.792 s, 8.9 MB/s
What about that!!! 46Mb/s -> 8.9Mb/s That’s an incredible 80% percent performance loss! I/O wait is always maxed at 90-100% which makes the machine totally unresponsive. I had to snip the output of vmstat because it is huge. It’s more than 140lines while all the others were at max 36 (athcool on, IDE). If anyone wants it I can surely upload it here.

I don’t think that’s what the programmer of athcool had in mind when he was talking about degraded performance…I think this is a bug. I can accept a 20% loss but not an 80% loss of performance. By the way, these tests were performed on ext3, but the same results appear with reiserfs as well.

This “bug” took me a while to figure out. I had my sata disk crawling for a long time before I thought of disabling athcool (yeah yeah I know it should have been the first thing to do…). I initially thought on posting the “bug” to the Gentoo bugzilla but while searching it I came up with this:
sys-power/athcool causes massive filesystem corruption; upstream was informed but did not respond. As far as I can tell Gentoo developers think that since there is a warning there is no extra reason that this package should be masked or whatever.

Dear Internets,
Is there anyone else who can confirm the same behavior of athcool with sata controllers ? I don’t have another sata controller to test, but if someone uses a different sata module, a test like the one I performed would show us whether it’s a sata_sil problem, so that I should report it to the kernel maintainers or an athcool problem, so that we should at least fill a new bug at the Gentoo bugzilla to ask the developers to hardmask the package.

Gentoo’s epic phail

kargig — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:23:51 +0000

As some people already know I’ve joined the army since 2 months ago, this makes it somewhat difficult for me to keep up with the latest updates for every machine I use.
Today I tried to upgrade a machine running stable (x86) Gentoo Linux after more than 15 days since the last upgrade and I got confronted with an epic Gentoo failure. The problem is clearly described on Odi’s blog. While trying to update e2fsprogs you have to uninstall the old version of them (so far so good), remove sys-libs/ss (that’s also acceptable) and remove sys-libs/com_err which is a dependency for MANY MANY progs, wget among them. So when you remove all these packages and try to install e2fsprogs-libs, wget can’t work anymore due to the missing libcom_err.so.2 file, so you can’t download the updates! You can’t open a new ssh connection to the machine either, so you can’t sftp the libcom_err.so.2 file from another machine! I had success by placing libcom_err.so.2 on a nfs share in another machine, mounting that share from the first machine and trying to re-emerge e2fsprogs-libs since wget could then work.

You can read more about the bug on Gentoo’s bugzilla, here and here.

a) Since portage is NOT ready to handle these kind of situations (according to bugzilla) why did the maintainers mark e2fsprogs-libs as stable ? Why didn’t they do ANY testing at all on the stable branch ?
b) Why wasn’t there a warning/alert/whatever on Gentoo’s website ?
c) It’s been more than 10 days since the problem first appeared and there hasn’t been any official solution about it, either by portage upgrade or by package masking.
d) Should I have googled or searched the forums before upgrading ? Possibly yes…but Gentoo didn’t have such upgrade problems before. I could accept it if problems on Gentoo were created by an upstream ABI breakage like dev-libs/expat had not so long ago, but this looks to me as a totally Gentoo related problem and not an upstream one.

I award Gentoo and e2fsprogs-libs maintainers a sad trombone. Sorry people but this is an epic failure. You deserve it.