Bypassing Charter Pipeline's hijacked DNS helper

The Problem:

Urg! Demn annoying penny-pinching ISPs!

First it was Verisign, than Earthlink, than Charter, than Microsoft. I so hate seeing this:

Instead of this:
Note, in both cases the same misspelled address was typed in - mapsS.google.com. In 1st case, Charter Communication's default DNS server was used, in the 2nd case, their undisclosed master DNS server was used.

In first case, every time I mistype a domain name (in SSH, PING, or browser's address field) I get a valid DNS A record given to me, which freezes PING and SSH and produces trash in browser's address field.

In second case, same mistyped address gives a valid "server not found" code and all my applications behave normally.

Here are the NORMALLY WORKING Charter Communication's DNS servers:

209.225.8.42
209.225.8.43

These are their master DNS servers that DO NOT return "Charter Communications" "Sorry, the page you are looking for cannot be found." But how do we use them instead of the SiteFinder / Wildcard

Regular Charter Communications's Pipeline customers are on DHCP connections and the IP changes every time the modem reboots. So, there is really no practical way to set just the DNS servers manually in the router /computer set up screen, while keeping IP on DHCP.

If you want to call and complain to Charter about this, you better prepare to use the lingo. Start with this blog on dslreports.com and collect the ammunition. However, since people were complaining about this since February 2007, and nothing happened, don't hold your breath...

The Solution:

For those behind a good router, you can keep the WAN side as DHCP, and set your internal LAN network to static IPs. This way you can override the DNS servers on the machines themselves.

Those with screwey routers, who cannot do static MAC-based IP assignment on the LAN side, you guys are in for a ride.

Windows machines only support manual IP AND DNS or static IP AND DNS. There is no easy way to Have IP assigned by DHCP and DNS hand-chosen. But, on Linux you can have the best of both worlds.

If you use NetworkManager in Kubuntu or Suse, and prefer to get IP over DHCP, you can still go inside "Manual Configuration..." menu option of KNetworkManager menu and prescribe your own DNS server IPs. The bonus here is that you can store that as a profile, and set your preferred DNS servers back with one click. Observe:


Once you remove the broken crap and enter the properly working 209.225.8.42 and 209.225.8.43 DNS servers, go to Network Profiles tab and save it. Next time your DHCP server sets your servers to Charter CrapSiteFinder-producing DNS servers, go to the same tab and activate the saved profile.

Now, pick up your phone and call Charter with a complain.

Charter Corporate Complaint Line: 314-288-3150

So, you want to contribute to KDE's Oxygen project...

Why Oxygen project is like a strip club.

Oxygen team is a group of people with long history and plenty of skill in art-content creation. Normally you don't argue with the artist – it's art after all... But, Oxygen icon set is not just art – it's a working part of user interface. In my book, before an icon is allowed to be fashionable, it must be functional.

While marveling at the quality of drawing skill, I couldn't help but notice small problems here and there. To an untrained eye Oxygen project appears to be open-source-flavored, so I tried to “contribute” with tweaked images and “bug reports,” to be met with an unusual amount of “why-don't-you-buzz-off.”

“Why don't you buzz off” is a normal and reasonable part of major developers' tool set, but, this time, i came carrying gifts, and got a boot almost immediately. Altered icons were calmly put on the shelf, serious written suggestions were met with childish jabs, childish whining was met with parental reprimands... I was intrigued... The behavior did not fit the usual “open source project” pattern.

And then I understood: I could look, but I cannot touch!

Why touching the raw body is important in Open Source world.

You are making a cake with your favorite strawberry filling. By mistake you forget to add thickener to the filling. After baking, you cut the cake and serve it to your friends. The pieces are gooey mess and you are forced to cover it up with whipped cream, because baking a completely new cake is just not worth it. That thing you covered with whipped cream happens to be “good enough.” tm

I never baked a cake, but ate enough half-baked solutions to notice one in the making. If I point out few things to the baker, while the cake is still in the making – it takes seconds to fix it. If comments and alterations to the publicly consumed product are only allowed after it is already in the stable branch and has a string-freeze on it – you have to be God or someone very similar to enact any change.

By this time many of you clever people will get what I am saying and will argue that only contributors with “merit” are allowed to advise. You want to be listened to – earn merit.

This is where the Oxygen project comes back into our story...

When does “your open source project” stop being yours?

Edited log of a conversation from #kde-artists circa January 8, 2007. To the best of my knowledge, “kwwii” is Kenneth Wimer's nick. Kenneth is one of the people working on Oxygen team.

CuCullin: back to my licensing question :) In general, should other artwork generally fall under the Free Art License (seemingly compatible for any work that is not specifically "software or focumentation", but recommended over CC2.0?
CuCullin: the fsf recommends the free art license over cc, and the eff lists the free art license - other than that and CC, I couldn't find any existing alternatives
kwwii: that cannot work for us, as we will dual license it probalby
kwwii: so that we can also get jobs working for companies after "finishing" oxygen
CuCullin: why wouldnt the gpl equiv for art be the "official" kde artwork license, and companies can go ahead and license whatever they want for unofficial kde artwork goodies?
kwwii: well, that is exactly our plan
CuCullin: as in, upstream contributed artwork being free.
kwwii: exactly
CuCullin: so all kde artwork is to be dual licensed, in a free way, and then the ability to have a non-free way?
kwwii: not all artwork, just some of it
kwwii: well, some licenses prevent dual licensing
kwwii: IANAL so I get scared and freaky whenever I even think about this stuff
CuCullin: i understand that - but why would "official" kde artwork have to be dual licensed, thats what im not getting. KDE is only covered under one, why is the artwork different?
kwwii: well, if oxygen is the official artwork, which it will be, we (the orginal authors, the authors of some of it) need to be able to dual license it so that companies give us jobs
kwwii: eating and paying the rent is important for me
kwwii: certain companies will hopefully pay us to work on oxygen for them
kwwii: so the stuff that goes upstream is free but the stuff that we do for them is not

That is not exactly bad news or illicit behavior, but, rather a simple explanation for why it is so difficult to contribute to Oxygen at this time. Right there lies the reason why people trying to join or, at least help, with the building of the better tomorrow are getting shot at.

If “original creators” share the “original creator / contributor to Oxygen theme” title with all people who want to improve the theme, that will dilute their monopoly to license “KDE's official look” to commercial products. If KDE's official Oxygen set is provided under a more restrictive license, similar to GPL, only Oxygen team will be able to sell commercial icons incorporating official KDE design elements. If Adobe wants its closed source Acrobat Pro to look like KDE, there is only one shop that could do the icon job.

My mom says: “There could only be one woman controlling the kitchen.” But what is being cooked here is much more than a single meal, but the insignia and feel of the whole project. Ready involvement of “junior contributors” would ensure a splendidly attuned dinner and guarantee of further propagation of the style. Instead, free lunch is offered with a side dish of glass sealing.

Small-time / aspiring artists will have to wait till official Oxygen set is released under a license that allows distribution of modifications.

Be nice to your grandkids, who else will chew your food for you when you loose your teeth.

I see more KDE power and community on KDE-Look than on kde.org. I see KDE survive Gnomization of commercial product arena only through its “accepting” community. KDE was the place of a dozen text editors, competing rather freely.

In the last year, I saw kde-promo and artwork teams completely fold under organizational umbrella and internalize the contributions. At last Akademy Aaron Seigo is said to ask the audience, “What is KDE?” I am told, as an answer he showed the audience their own photos. I hope that did not get into lead hackers' heads in a wrong way.

Getting chat bubbles back into Kopete

With version 0.12.x Kopete lost my favorite chat style - iChat. It's for a good reason - that look might have been "encumbered." But, I need a simple, personal chat style; so I got it back.


Kopete users, meet "Bubbliki" - the not so new, but, fresh and Adium-compatible Kopete chat style.

Bubbliki normally shows

• logo of you and the chat partner
  
• message bubble (consecutive messages get into the previous bubble)
• status messages (in gray, and not in bubbles)

Six different color combinations are provided for the bubbles. You can choose your own color, but will have to edit [variant].css to get it in. When you hover your mouse over the logo, the name shows up. When you hover over the individial message, the time for that message shows up. Observe:

You can get Bubbliki chat theme here on kde-look.org.

How to Protect Your Open Source Project From Poisonous Yourself

There are these pesky, annoying new users that float around the Open Source. They suck your energy, bog you down with endless arguments and make you loose your focus... Maybe for a good reason.

New Approaches to Cockroaches

How to Protect Your Open Source Project From Poisonous People (PDF) by Ben Collins-Sussman & Brian W. Fitzpatrick is the new solution to the old problem - How do you keep dissenting and free-willing element out of your cult.

Inquisition burned and tortured. Southern whites strung to the tree and lynched. Communists summarily ... The new approach - smile and stare at the unwanted blindly until he gets tired of banging his/her head against the wall and goes away.

Attention & Focus: are They Worth Guarding?

There are 2 kinds of open source contributors:

1. - wobbly, innocent ones:
• "Undecided"
• "Well, I am here somehow, might as well become usefull"
• "I am here for the company"
• "I use it and feel the urge to give back"
• "I am doing it in large part to make the world a better place."
2. - all the others, including:
• I am doing it to leave my mark / legacy in this world.
• It scratches my particular itch
• I am coding because that's the only thing I can do.
  
• I am doing it to get a line on my resume
• I need to have a hobby, a pet-project I would care for.
  
• I, I, I, me, me, me

Not surprisingly, the group 2 is usually the core of the cults. They have the focus and attention - they have a clear goal in their head. They are the ones who usually are the actual poison.

When leaders sit in the chair for a long time, myopia creeps in. What may look like outlandish, baseless whining, could actually be the first sign that the rest of the world will soon give up on you and move on.

Let other people audit your focus vocally, on a regular basis. If you are too protective and controlling of your focus and project, you are insulating it from new blood, ideas and vital course corrections. Screaming matches are a waste of everyone's time, but a sturn argument is your best friend. Being wrong just for the hack of it on a regular basis may be the healthiest thing for you and your hobby.

"Whaaaaaaaa-aat? Me bend to requestests?! That's unpossible!"

In short, be very careful using the Poisonous Person ideology. The whole premis of the "How to Protect Your Open Source Project from Poisonous People" presentation lies on a fallacy - in practical, long-term view "Your" and "Open Source Project" cannot be used together, unless you want your ego to be kicked repeatedly in the groin, or you want the project to die.
Annoying, demanding whiners are not the poison, they are a vaccine. The deadly poison is the words "I, Me, Mine!"

My god! What have they done to Windows UI?!

DISCLOSURE:

I like Windows OS, I like it very much. On it, you get things done. It is a platform of choice for generations of people who needed "open-ended" (as in: Very easy to develop on.) and "standard" (as in: Monopoly means - the platform is pervasive and uniform - a good thing in my book.)
Windows (XP in particular) added immence convenience to the platfom in the form of quick hibernation (to disk - a laptop must), solid wireless connection control module. On my laptop, I manage to work in MS Office with my hard-drive and fans completely spinned down. Unlike Linux+KDE on the same machine, it is completely silent when it matters. Love that. For 2 years now I was really trying to make Slackware / OpenSuSE spin down its drive when it's idle to no avail. There is always some app / service that wants to wake my drive up and cause its untimely death.
So, while my heart belongs to Linux+KDE, my brains and outmost recommendation solidly belong to Windows.

THE POINT:

So, why does Microsoft goes around and pokes a stick in users' eyes with the new UI skin and the monstrocity of inconsistent UI element arrangements? Horror!
For 2 years I was secretly hoping they would come down to their sances... This is several magnitudes more horrible than the Keramik theme debacle on KDE. MS added insut to ingury by allowing programmers to turn window UI into butons / elements salad.
In Windows XP I could always switch off, or change the Luna into something more sensible. There is no escape from the designer's poor judgement now. Uggghh...

Guilty pleasures of KDE

THE SIMPLE PLEASURES OF THE PRESENT

One can easily overlook the complex things and be completely stunned with the simple.

I was scouting for “best” SuperKaramba applets while working on the KDE 3.5.x screenshots and I was stunned by the simplicity and genius of a-foto – a SuperKaramba applet. It is designed for only one thing – show miniatures of your favorite photos on your desktop. The genius of the applet was in it method of use – you drop the items you want displayed on top of the applet, and in its exquisite picture frames.

THE PROBLEMS

I also realized how much little gems like a-foto need our help to make them diamonds. Looking at the many things Open Source world have produced, I see two things that consistently make good software languish and sink bellow the surface of visibility:

1. Obscurity.

This is the deadliest disease in Open Source. No matter how good your software is, if people don't know about it, it does not exist. It is a “If tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” kind of a thing, but with a twist. There are so many big trees falling around, we miss the small trees behind the noise. It seems, there is only one way to promote small, but genius projects – organize “fallen tree” support groups and really, really yell about it. :) Hence, this 1st column on the theme of “The gems of KDE.”

2. One-sidedness of author's skills.

This is not a deadly affliction, but a very annoying one, like herpes. It puts a sealing at how popular your software can become.

In the case of a-foto, one-sidedness was manifested through natural limits of how well a beginner-Python-eer, graphics-designer-type can do a “mainstream” applet. As was said, visually and conceptually the applet was stunning, but mechanically it was a stretch. It had some ineffective redraw issues and mildly suffered from ESL-ism (English as a Second Language). The author did it's best in the area of his expertise, scratched his itch and more. Yet, he would be would be clobbered by demanding users would he try to push the applet further. Hence – it languished in the depths of kde-look.

There in lies the problem – if platform does not offer a safety net for its gems – it's platform's loss. Foundation is only as good, as the things you build and use on top of it. KDE has promoted its steel frame through and through, but forgot to mention that we also have excellent decorative, quality-of-life elements in our present building. Structural solidity is often a given now-days. Finishing touches, and their availability today counts a lot and conveys the “readiness” of the platform. Luxuries – is what seals the deal. In the end, any platform is there to be used, not continuously rebuilt. I want to see and hear about whatever the luxury, glamor and posh-ness of KDE there is today.

WHAT CAN BE DONE

No matter how highly people think about Open Source, in the core, it IS a meritocracy – a democracy in which some voices have disproportionately high weights. The more you contribute, the less inquisitive eyes are pointed towards your opinion. It's not that everyone suddenly starts to trust your opinion. It's rather - “Ehhh, I'm ganna let it slide and not complain. He does good on average.” The key to pushing your own agenda is to do a lot of what public wants and likes, and the masses will forgive you little personal pet projects you push through the public forum. If you do promoting out of real goodness of the heart, the masses may even listen.

Advertising 3rd party projects is a bit controversial. It involves taking sides – ugh! But, replacing respected opinion-ism with respectful silence is death for everything you stand for. I stand for quality of life, even while traveling to a better place. They say “cold fusion is always 5 years away,” so was the “true communist society.” The truth is, constantly living in transitional state and thinking about better future is bad for mental health.

In Soviet Union, people would always be told about better, stable, more advanced, heaven-like places (Black sea coast, Moscow) and rely on these rare “complete” pleasures for relief from drag of leaving on the “road” to better future for the larger remaining part of the year.

I want to hear about “semi-officially recognized,” better, stable, complete, more advanced, heaven-like places that are available on KDE today. If no one sees real examples of KDE luxury accessible today, there may be a real turnover issue with the volunteer work-force that builds the road to KDE's better future. (Minister of “Information about present day goodness” anyone? :) )

1. I would like those whose voice is loud to scan regularly and systematically the area of your interest and subjectively pick a project needing attention and plugging it, broker for devs to help with parts you consider missing, all in the name of preserving the few mandatory luxuries of KDE's “today” living.

2. I would like people to be critical and take sides. It is harsh, but greatly helps the newly-arrived and the currently dis-illusioned. You tell them straight what is the best item in the box. I am talking about “Kaffeine is much friendlier and feature-full than Kmplayer,” “Kontact is good looking but brings very little to the table in terms of Outlook-like integration between components” and “For a generic user DigiKam is the most complete solution.” Harsh and subjective, but user can rely on it.

EXAMPLE

I used my 15 minutes at the pulpit to plug the best “generic” reality of lushness of KDE in the KDE 3.5.x screenshot series. I rubbed the established norms against the grain a bit, by deviating from “default” look and application set. The result – a much more complete, useful promotional message. I am glad I got away with the little changes to the decor, and pet projects (basket, a-foto, miloCalendar), and taking of sides (Kaffeine, Twinkle). In the end, if more “user” types will raise their opinion, the overall message maybe not as controversial or diverse as originally thought.

So, how can we tell a better tale of "today's" KDE?

New skin for YaKuake

Just posted a new Plastik-inspired skin for YaKuake. More info here.

Video and TV Out in Xorg on Linux

SUMMARY:
Current approaches to (a) enabling / managing TV-out on ATI's video cards and (b) ways of enabling / managing Xvideo (video overlay) assignment on a running X server. I introduce ATI's aticonfig utility as the main part of the solution. (see end of article)

(2nd Edition. Seems many people found this article useful. I edited for simplicity of consumption)
(addition: I made a simple SuperKaramba applet for XVideo switching.)

PREFACE:
Unlike what many ppl think, TV-out (linux, windows, etc) has 2 different meanings.
To normal folk, TV-out from a computer means, you can see your computer screen picture on TV, similar to hooking up a laptop to a projector for business presentation. To folk like me, who play with video streams on their computers and would like to push it to the TV, TV-out immediately collects one more layer of complexity. We are talking about management of video overlay.

Video (I am talking about, good-looking, non-flickering, perfect picture) is a special citizen in computer world. That perfect kind of video picture you expect from a DVD movie is treated as special stream by computer and gets a special - direct - way from the decoder into a "back door" on the video card and onto the screen. So, while the rest of the picture of your regular computer screen goes through compositing, waits in line and finally gets to the screen, the video feed can swoosh through the time-space continuum and be simply glued on top of the picture right before it comes out of the video card. That is what's called video overlay, or Xv in X window world. (Xv is not the only kind of overlay on X, but it's the most commonly supported by drivers and media frameworks. See the end of the article for OpenGL overlay discussion)

Why is this important? Normally, this "hardware accelerated" video overlay can only be pushed out of only one output of video card. This problem is often described as "The video shows on one screen, but there is only black/blue/pink square on the other screen." ATI's windows drivers learned to multiply Video Overlay. On Windows XP, my Radeon's drivers allowed me to clone Video Overlay to all the screens at the same time. On Linux though... you know. Now you should understand what my problem is...

THE PROBLEM WE ARE SOLVING:
I have a TV card in my Slackware box that I use to record fun TV programs like "South Park," "Family Guy," "Lost." Luckly, my wife is not into "South Park," or "Family Guy" so I just watch these on my computer screen. (I use KDE's Kaffeine player frontend for Xine, with Xv as output standard.) Unfortunately, "Lost" is her thing and she wants to watch it on a 34+ inch TV. I don't blame her, the TV comes with a sofa parked somewhat in front of it. So...

I want a TV-out that is easy to enable and (most importantly) can output Xv on demand! I don't want the TV resolution to dictate what refresh rate and screen size I have on main monitor. I don't want to run a separate X server (extra resources used) to be able to output Xv onto it instantaneously (i.e. without restarting X).
I want to work / use Xv on main monitor, turn TV on, switch the video stream to it, watch a movie on TV using same Xv extension, return back to my computer screen to work / watch movies through Xv on computer monitor, all without restarting X.
You may say, "Whattsa matter wit you? You can do it already..." Not quite. With Xv in the mix, on Linux this is an uphill battle.

SOLUTIONS:

There are 3 ways I can potentially go with my ATI Radeon 8500 (SVGA, DVI and S-Video out.):
A. Xorg drivers, or B. Xorg drivers sprinkled by Gatos project, or C. ATI proprietary drivers (fglrx).

A. Xorg drivers (6.8.2 and 6.9, 7.0):
The Xorg's "radeon" driver has NO obvious, listed options for enabling or controlling the TV-out. There are numerous messages on the xorg mailing list saying that radeon driver does not know how to activate the TV encoder chip. As a result, simply defining the S-Video out as one more monitor only produces garbage on TV screen. The latter is confirmed by other messages on the same list.
For some, the problem with "stock" Xorg drivers (its inability to activate the TV-out encoder chip) could be mitigated by a utility called atitvout. It is designed to make direct calls to the video card BIOS. In my case, the calls were unanswered. TV-out not yet.

B. Xorg + Gatos:
I red the TV out documentation on Gatos web site and am a bit scared. The instructions talk of patching the X sources, compiling them, compiling additional software, etc. At the same time, there is very little mentioned about what and where I can do on Xv front. Does it come out on both screens? If not, how easy is it to switch screens? (see xvattr link for that)
Without those answers and influenced even more by the statement of immaturity of the solution, the unhappy prospect of recompiling X and other funkiness, I decided to postpone the discovery of Gatos until some better days. Besides, some Gatos parts are moving into Xorg 7.0. Once they are well documented, I'll look into this again.
In the meantime, those who dare to go this route should find these resources useful:
"TV output module" page of Gatos project.
A non-ATI utility for switching the screen for video overlay. Example usage: xvattr --attribute XV_SWITCHCRT -v [0/1]

C. ATI's proprietary fglrx drivers:

There were huge problems with using ATI's drivers

• No Composite support; (per 8.24.8 release notes)
• No (reliable) support for software-suspend / hibernation; (per 8.24.8 release notes)
• No support for ACPI. (The drivers expect APM.) (per personal experience)
• - No TV out support on ATI's X1xxx cards yet. (per 8.24.8 release notes)

There are huge pluses as well:
Well, the OpenGL for starters. Also, hands down, ATI's fglrx drivers offer best documented and easiest ways to enable and control TV-Out. I don't need to set up any new monitor section. I don't have to change ANY of the settings in the xorg.conf. If the card detects a TV connected to the S-Video or composite/Yellow RCA connector, TV out is activated automatically when X starts. You can even leave "Option 'DesktopSetup' '(none)'" in place. All you really have to change is the TV signal standard, if the default "NTSC-M" is not for you.
The excellent part of the ATI's tv-out is that TV is on, even when my main monitor's resolution and refresh rate are well above those of a TV. In this mode, TV simply "pans" (Imagine looking at a picture with a magnifying glass.) Even cooler part of this set up is that (my) ATI's TV encoder chip accepts 800x600 resolution as acceptable. It then scales it down to TV's 320x280 interlaced (or, whatever that is), producing unquestionably exceptional (for TV) picture.

Managing Xv on a running X server:

The docs also make it clear that I can output Xv to only one out at a time. In my search for a simple way to switch which screen gets the Video Overlay I found - aticonfig.
ATI ships an "aticonfig" command line utility with it's drivers. It is designed for changing the xorg.conf through command line arguments. One of them is "--overlay-on=" option, which targets "Option 'OverlayOnCRTC2' 'n'" but affects the running X server as well. Bingo!
This command ("aticonfig --overlay-on="[0/1]) can switch a running Xv video stream from one screen to another in mid-air.
I can watch a movie on computer screen, pause it, run "aticonfig --ovon=1", turn TV on, say to my wife "You have to see this" and hit play to continue watching the movie on TV. (A tear is crawling out of my eye.) It's a miracle!

IS THERE ANOTHER WAY? aka. How to get video stream on BOTH, the computer and TV screens?:
All that XVideo talk I had above is nice. But, what if you need you video stream to be cloned to many monitors? Then, we need to look into a completely different type of video overlay - OpenGL overlay.

To make it work, you don't even have to touch the Xorg.conf. As long as OpenGL works on your system, you have a chance to use OpenGL "video" overlay. To enable it, you go to your favorite video player and change the video output driver setting.
In my case, it's KDE's excellent Kaffeine media player v.0.8, that uses Xine media engine. If the setting (see screenshot) is accepted by Xine (Kaffeine will let you know if not), you will instantly be able to output video to all cloned screens.



So, why all the hoopla about XVideo above? Why NOT just use OpenGL overlay? Two reasons:
- Not everybody on Linux has a working OpenGL. Direct rendering / OpenGL brakes hibernation on many platforms too. So, on my laptop accelerated OpenGL is completely disabled.
- XVideo uses much, much, much fewer CPU resources. On my 933Mhz Pentium III, Radeon 8500 computer, OpenGL overlay consumes 100% of CPU, makes the rest of the system jerky and drops video frames fairly often. Playing a DVD through XVideo, scaled up to 1280x1024, with some extra effects, only consumes about 30% of CPU.

From 0 to Kubuntu in 1 day.

How I installed Kubuntu Linux on a laptop with NO cdrom or floppy drive.

WHY LINUX ON MY LAPTOP?

Wanted to install a Linux on my laptop for 3 reasons:
- the CRT on my Slackware desktop is killing my eyes;
- the whine of 3 hard drives (everything else I silenced as much as I could) was getting on my nerves and
- wanted to work on computer while lying in bed.

I am otherwise perfectly happy with only Windows XP on the laptop, but it makes it difficult to work on things like SuperKaramba applets, use Kopete or Kmail. I also want finally to get around to coding a small server-client command-line app for timeshifting/recording TV using the MPEG2-encoder/tuner on my desktop. Since that will likely be in C (which I am yet to learn) and will use Linux pipes, windows as a development platform was too difficult to digest. (I could also VPN, or NX to the Slackware box, but...)

CHOOSING THE DISTRO

1. "Just say no to RPM."
I consider my experience with RedHat version 5.x to 6.x a traumatic experience. If someone chose to plunge into what is commonly known as "RPM Hell" that was the right time and I was the person. Since then, the word "RPM" induces the same violin screeching noises one would hear in the "Psycho"s bathroom scene. I am afraid I will brake the screen if I see words "rpm" and "required dependencies" in same sentence.
Loosers: RedHat, Mandriva, (with great pain in my heart) Suse)

2. "Not Gnome-centric distro"
I see only one problem with Gnome as a central theme of the distro. KDE there Is usually poorly integrated and horribly put together. One example of that is KDE on Ubuntu (tried some time in beginning of 2005).
Loosers: (Fedora, Ubuntu)

3. "I want a working HAL"
I got tired of recompiling KDEBase to include HAL/DBUS on Slackware everytime I download new version of KDE. It is not difficult, but, very annoying.
Loosers: The only looser is my dear Slackware. (and, maybe Debian)

4. "I want to be in with the crowd"
It has to be a major distro. I want to see any bug I discover to ba already discussed and, possibly, solved on the forums by the time I am ready to post about it. In other words, I want biggest quality control crowd.
Loosers: all the relatively small, specialty distros.
5. "I want it to compile"
I want a distro that has relatively generic, not heavily altered libraries. In case you are wandering whoever tried the Linux distro Corel made once - that was I. In case you are wandering how long it lasted; it lasted until I tried to compile some generic KDE app against their heavily altered KDE sources.
Loosers: Linspire, and that other one, you know what I mean. (Slackware is Heaven in that respect)

6. "Hibernate!"
For heaven's sake! Please, let it hibernate (suspend2disk) without problems and my tweaking of it! (Now you know why letting SuSE rot was so painful of a decision)

7. "The Magician"
I want a distro that can install without significant pain on a laptop (Intel 815-based Sony) WITHOUT a cdrom drive or a floppy drive. For that, it has to have boot images able to do a network install. I would shrink windows partition myself. Install windows version of Grub. Get boot images and feed them to Grub. But, then, the disto is on its own.

Once I emerged from this maze, the only (very hesitant) answer was - Kubuntu.

THE DIRTY DEED

Shrinking the Windows partition. I am so glad I didn't have to do it. When I installed windows there I created 2 partitions for system and data. Today, this paid off.

Getting grub to install on Windows. Grub for DOS does not (and will never) work on NTFS partition with WinXP SP2 and up. As a result, the developer is dropping NTFS partition support altogether. Grub for Windows (WinGrub) interface is coo-coo. Until the day I tried to use WinGrub, I thought I can read English. Upparently, I can't. I don't know what I did, but after some error messages, and debacles, I found out that Grub was installed. Yes!!!!!

Getting images for Kubuntu network install is easy, they are on the CD I downloaded. What is not easy is to swallow the definition of network install per Kubuntu. Official word is - I need some special type of ftp set up on server, add dhcp server and make sure the laptop boots from that, and not DHCP server my router provides. Compared to that, going and spending $100+ on external USB CDROM looked much less painful, yet, I decided to see what happens with Kubuntu boot images when they DON'T find everything listed. That was a good move...

The laptop booted the Grub, Kubuntu install boot images, and after some prompts (one of which let me know that my Lan card was detected) I got to a screen that asked to add a source of a Kubuntu mirror. Yey! I saw the light at the end of the tunnel... a very long tunnel as I found out. Yet, FTP install with Kubuntu is possible.

Several prompts further (one of which complained that install cannot alter Grub settings on (NTFS) drive), install informed me that it's going to download/install. It finished that in several minutes... which struck me as odd. My connection is only 5 times faster than a modem, that can't be it. And, it wasn't.

What I got installed was just the base libs, system execs, config files and vi. (the official text editor of people who like doing thing in the most absurd, dificult way, like brushing their teeth by pushing the arm through their ass.) Because of this, I couldn't add "Universe" tree of packages to my APT sources until I managed to run KWord. For the sake of people like me, I wish Midnight Commander would become a standard part of base install. Why, oh, why does it have to be in the (optional) Universe tree?

Well, I sorta know my way around APT, and found APTASTIC (or whatever its name is) by accident. Eventually I clawed my way up. My only wish there was a "whole-damn-functioning-system-with-all-usual-kde-parts" simulated package that I could just APT and go have a lunch. Instead, I had to list'n'apt hoping the dependencies will be drugged in. (Somehow I ended up with Emacs installed, but not Juk, or Kpackage. I feel RPM-Hell-like induced hysteria is creeping in)

Nevertheless, the pain of installation is behind me. Hibernate (suspend to disk), wireless card, and many other things still don't work, but I'm happy I can post this story from it already.

In the retrospect

May be I should have spent some money on a shrink to help me get over the RPM phobia and installed OpenSuse instead. But, I think I had enough install excitement this month.

EDIT:

Several days later, I did install OpenSuse. It was suggested that OpenSuse "is Very Laptop." After using it for several weeks, I can't agree more. EVERYTHING works. Hybernate, Wireless PCMCIA card, power management. I will see how Suse handles what on apt-get-enabled platforms is called "--dist-upgrade" If it's anything as flawless as on Slackware, I am paying for a commercial Suse package and overwriting the Slack.

Kalarm SuperKaramba Applet

UPDATE:
Well, the week came and went, and I didn't even start. (Honestly, just had too much fun at my brother's place in Seattle.) So, I guess, this project is not important enough... until the next time I forget to do something. :)




SHORT STORY:

What you see above is a sketch for SuperKaramba applet client for the Kalarm KDE application. (Well, I was hoping to bypass the Kalarm completely and go straight for the Kalarm server through DCOP. I don't want another icon in my systray. Another glob of graphics on my desktop is OK though. Will se if it's possible.)

LONG STORY:

Intro

Missed my South Park episodes again last night. (we all have our guilty pleasures. Mine are South Park, Family Guy and, maybe, American Dad) Also, I always forget to pick up / turn the laundry. It stays there for half a day until my wife asks. She usually asks about it in an unpleasant, somewhat threatening way. Anyway... something should be done about this "forgetfulness" thing.

The Grudge

KOrganizer is an overkill for this. KAlarm is just fine, but don't like to run another "time-tracking" client alongside KOrganizer. If there was a "light" way to add alarms to KOrganizer, instead of having a separate Kalarm server... May be I just don't understand something.
Besides, last time I needed a clock that looks right, I managed to whip up a face for StyleClock. This project looks just as manageable.

(Hmmm... Why don't I just use the StyleClock.... Ahhh, that's right. Clock face corruption after switching the VTs and only one alarm can be set. Otherwise a demn good applet. If only I knew C++...)

So, I need an easy way to:
a) Set the alarm.
b) See how much time is left.
c) (bonus) not have another icon in systray/run another app just to set the alarms.

The Fix

Decided to make a SuperKaramba applet for Kalarm server which:
a) Displays currently set alarms. (DCOP the data off Kalarm server... If there is one.)
b) Allows easy access to setting new alarms. (Just asks Minutes and Text through kdialog > command-line kalarm client > kalarm server.)
c) is very basic in structure > quick to assemble.

Plan

Going to Seattle for a week and a half, starting today. If I can't make the applet in this week and a half, it means it's not worth it. I'll just use the KAlarm.

Gnome overlords, be very affraid! (Fairytale)

(This was written as a sidenote to the riots following the news of Novell standardising on Gnome. As time passes, you and I may forget that on the background of "the sky is falling" this post may be seen as humorous.)

"Booga Booga"

Dramma in 2 parts

I think Gnome people will be very sorry if they win this fight. Because, then, they will loose the war. "Ugh?!" you say; read on...

Part I "KDE City"

KDE is KDE not because we are uneducated about "the better ways", but because we fundamentally don't give a damn about "the better ways." There are so many of us; there is NO single better way possible. KDE is an elastic building, you can shape it any way you want, and build on top effortlessly.

You can kill the toolkit by pigeonholing it, but you can't keep the massess from wanting a platform that is as elastic and free-willing as itself. If KDE will be shunned into a hole because of Qt's lisencing liabilities we may move over to GTK territory. As I said before, when our forefathers chose Qt, "they didn't give a damn"(c) about lisencing. All they cared about is having a good base to build on. If Qt really becomes a liability for us when it comes to swindling money from the major distros, we will move over to your lawn.

Part II "The Hell of Democracy"

We will tramp your flowers, step on your bare fingers with our heavy boots and spit on your spacial browser from a konquering height. We will forcefully industrialize you, spank your monkey and make GTK dance C++.

The final piece will be the sweetest - the gang of feudal war-lords (you know how you are) will find themselves without your ideologically-brainwashed goons.

If you sink our island, we will move over to yours and, then, there will be no Shire no more....

At that point Miguel de Icaza woke up and realized that it was only a nighmare... or was it?! Tam tam Tam Paaaaam!

KDE - I hope we go down kicking and screaming.

One thing bothered me a lot lately, and the itch became a wound with Novell's announcement of standardization on Gnome. It is the possibility of KDE's imminent demise.

Why KDE is like Childhood in Soviet Union, but better.

I LOVED to be a kid in the Soviet Union. There were very little fences you couldn't cross, with plenty of semi-private property you could care less about. We felt no pain of inadequacy of not having the last-advertised toy because there were no advertisements. There was no limit to who you thought you can be when you grow up, with every boy having a seemingly equal chance of being a communist leader, a cosmonaut, or a neighborhood drunk. Euphoria - was the theme of my every day.
And, then, you grow up and the hangover ends. Clearly thinking, opinionated, enterprising adult had no place in the Soviet Union. (Well, there were rare places: party's leadership, Gulag, Odessa.) One would wander how this machine is still alive. And one day the machine died.

My "childhood" in KDE was incredibly fun. There is much more freedom to grow in KDE sandbox, than on Gnome's raging ocean of sinking sand. Everything makes sense here. Tightly designed toolkit provides clean, fool-proof approach for designing the structure. Being the main kid on the block, KDE was, for a long time, growing on the basis of "Lets do it better", compared to Gnome's constricted "Lets do it better than KDE." The focus on plain improvement (as opposed to "comparative improvement") imho made KDE an awesome community. Having 3 editors is not a sign of bad design. It is a sign of lack of limits, and a sign of community's willingness to contribute in various ways and accept these various ways. Efficiency of singular vision is foreign to KDE, just a as brackets of communist society were foreign to Soviet children. In both societies no one gives a damn. This freedom to use AND create/improve is what makes us tolerant, happy and numerous compared to the niche-minded, well-picked, defensive hordes. That's what makes KDE win most of the popularity polls, despite Gnome's very sane usability tricks.

Why Graduating Up from "Free" Sucks Ass.

Yet, once outside of "childish, no-limits" community, I cannot imagine making serious business with KDE. RedHat, Novell and others of their kind cannot imagine doing business on KDE either. "What is the problem?" you say; commercial projects can pay for the toolkit... And, that's were you go wrong. No one in their right mind wants to pay for anything when it comes to capitalism. "We spare no cost to make the product better" approach works only when you don't bare the cost, like in the Soviet system.

In capitalism, the best resource is the stolen/free one. Paying for something is a two-fold burden. First, you have to give the money for it. Second, you have to keep track of costs and ensure you can justify them with revenue.

Running my own business taught me that the second part is MUCH more painful. Costs, no matter how well-justified they are, only increase your exposure to failure. Anyone who took an economics class knows about "risk aversion." Almost everyone prefers to loose less, rather than gain more, hence, the Novell's choice of default desktop. Yes, GTK is a mangled piece of crap. Yes, it's an ever-changing, horrifically structured, poorly-documented slime-ball of regurgitations of various egoists, but ITS FREE to use in any way you want. Not only you don't have to pay, you don't even have to keep the paperwork. Yumm!

No matter how many times we KDE-maniacs like to utter the "you are free to choose: provide code, or pay the price" you are mistaken about the scope of limitations. People who really have to make this choice ask them-selves, "Why am I forced to make this choice? Screw the Qt sandbox, and all these rules, I'm ganna use that no-strings-attached pile of brown stuff instead." I am seriously contemplating this choice while thinking about doing business around extending / customizing CRM software.

I never bitch about things without and agenda; otherwise it's a waste of time (as compared to moderate waste of time).

MY AGENDA:

1. Troltech, wake up and smell the bacon. 3 Platforms is not a reason enough to charge $3000 plus for a developer's station. Mono/C# is not as cross-platform safe as Qt, but they'll get there, and with much lesser cost to the devs. There's got to be a middle ground on this price thing. I imagine clearly delineated discounts for young businesses, small-business wavers, or other marketing fudge. Big companies are both scared and repulsed by the choices you provide. Small companies don't even consider this a choice.
You have to fight for the damn market place. Openly sponsor a KDE-based distro, do some other summer-of-code lookalike. Hiring devs is not enough. You need to muscle in on the Linux scene.
2. When it comes to potential loss of community there is this. KDE devs need to pay credence to Linus's approach to things: "Constant incremental change is better than one universal solution, for it may never materialize because of the vastness of the goal." Stop scheming for quantum leap with KDE 4. Just do the porting of 3.5 tree to Qt4. Make it solid. Then, feed the faithful incremental improvements. If you expect the userbase to hold the breath for 2-3 years, until your vision of KDE 4 becomes stable, there will not be anyone left to make the quantum leap.
3. Finally, when it comes to potential loss of orther distro sugar-daddies: Real distros don't ship pre, beta, alpha version of DE. If KDE 4 takes 2 years to stabilize, with no clear continuity for KDE in the meantime, KDE-based distros will have nothing to sell for 2 years. Linux users are not Macoholics. Besides, many of us came from Windows and are not in a habit of paying $129 semi-annually for patches or other misc crap. I always skip many point releases. This means no cashflow for distros, and no incentive to think KDE. Guys, my crystal ball shows very little financial support from the up-stream.

EDIT: (I hope) clarified my point #3 a bit.

My first loss of "motherland" was painful enough. Geez, not again.

XOrg 6.9 RC1 (6.8.99.901) - Tested on Slackware

I'm glad to see how easy it was to install XOrg 6.9 rc1 (from source) on Slackware (10.2).

Intro

I was banging my head against the wall trying to make Xv (video overlay) work on my Radeon 8500 with XOrg 6.8.2. (I could output the video streams to xshm but... you know... jerky.)
The ATI proprietary drivers allowed Xv but their GL always froze the system on me. Besides, even if I made that work, composite probably wouldn't. So... the second I saw the release notes for XOrg 6.9 RC1, I knew I had to have it.

Set up

Slackware 10.2
2.6.13 Kernel (fb off; DRM, Radeon as modules)
Intel 815 Chipset
Pen III 950Mhz
Radeon 8500 LE (128 Mb)

Preparation

1. Downloaded the 40+ Meg tarball from here and extracted it.
2. Red the BUILD text file and followed its guidance.
3. Coppied xorgsite.def into host.def (as BUILD recommends) and edited the following things:
- disabled Xnest server (no need for me)
- disabled VirtFB server (no need for me)
- disabled Xprint server (no need for me)
- BuildFontServer = NO
- HasFreeType2 = YES
(The last two are there just as a guarantee of sort that the new stuff will not brake my already perfectly tuned font server (TTF's, antialiasing, hinting, etc))
4. make World (as root, just in case.) (about 6 hours on my machine. May be shorter, I was sleeping through most of it.)
5. make install (as root)
6. rebooted (into init 3)(mostly for the system to find new libraries, etc.)
(if your system is not set up for non-GUI in lilo, at lilo prompt, choose the Linux option and add " 3" (space, number 3, remove quotes) to the line, press enter.)
7. used xorgconfig to set up the XOrg. (I needed it because I used ATI's drivers before. If you used XOrg 6.8.x, just skip this step and leave your /etc/X11/xorg.conf in peace.)
8. Tweaked my /etc/X11/xorg.conf to support composite, AGPFastWrite, Overlay on 2nd CRT. Pointed the mouse device to /dev/input/mice, instead of default /dev/mouse.
9. ran xinit (the X loaded fine - curor showed up. Killed it with CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+BACKSPACE. (I know one key is extra, always forget which one.)
10. Rebooted into my normal runlevel (4, kdm)

Result

1. The best thing is: I have GL hardware accelleraction, Xv and Composite all ON and working flawlessly. In your face (enter your preferred adversary here)
2...
ahh, who cares about other benefits... I'm set.

YaKuake - Palastik theme

Finally tried YaKuake, after watching people cranking downloads and relating their joy.

Opinion
The default theme became very old, very quick though. It looks OK on the screenie, but plays very bad with my background and konsole style ("linux colors, or dark transparent background")

So, had to spend a night attempting to get this...


Bugs
In the process found a few things that make perfect sence to the developer, but not to themers, like me.

1. The biggest offender is the coordinates system. Some buttons are lined up relative to left side, while others are relative to right - all using positive numbers. If I want to move a button from one side of the toolbar to another, I am screwed as soon, as resolution, or window dimensions change.
Proposed solution: switch to negative numbers for right-allignment. I hope all units, buttons could be alligned to left or right side, by simply using positive or negative values, like all other "widget" apps do.

2. The other glitch (which causes YaKuake to crash) is its inability to handle non-transparent buttons for "plus" and "minus" functions. (possibly all others too, didn't try) Avoiding the transparency was the whole idea. With this bug, I have to leave one pixel transparent on these buttons > my background leeks through.

3. I was hoping I can allign the "add terminal" button in such a way that it always follows the last tab. This way a new terminal tab "grows" out of the "add terminal" button, which now reappears after this new active tab.

I hope I can also express my excitement about the program, but I it seems I spent it all on tweaking. Need to go and sleep now (8 am)

The theme is "done" for now. But I'll "finish" it as soon, as the bugs discussed are taken care of. I sent the theme to the YaKuake maintainer. I am guessing we might see some form of this Palastik with next major release of YaKuake.