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June 15th, 2011
11:27 pm - Stupid Portage Tricks - DOC_SYMLINKS_DIR
Ever have a package that installs HTML documentation into /usr/share/doc that you want to create a local bookmark to? For example, I find it useful to keep the quick reference page of the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide (app-doc/abs-guide) open in a tab, and because I sometimes need to work offline I want to link to the local copy instead of a web page.
One of the headaches you'll quickly encounter trying to do this is that package directories have versioned names, meaning every version bump breaks your links. This gets really old really fast. Fortunately portage has a solution: DOC_SYMLINKS_DIR.
The idea is that if you set DOC_SYMLINKS_DIR to a path, portage will create unversioned symlinks for packages installing HTML docs and update them automatically when the version changes.
So for example after you set DOC_SYMLINKS_DIR="/home/dirtyepic/doc/" and emerge abs-guide:
$ tree -d ~/doc
/home/dirtyepic/doc
`-- app-doc
`-- abs-guide -> /usr/share/doc/abs-guide-6.3/HTML
You can then just bookmark file:///home/dirtyepic/doc/app-doc/abs-guide/refcards.html and never have to worry about updating it.
As I mentioned above, portage will create symlinks for any packages installing HTML docs (determined by looking for "html" or "HTML" subdirectories). Personally I don't like my doc directory cluttered up with a bunch of packages I don't care about so I just enable DOC_SYMLINKS_DIR on a per-package basis:
$ cat /etc/portage/env/app-doc/abs-guide
DOC_SYMLINKS_DIR=/home/dirtyepic/doc
Some notes:
- If you want the symlink dir under your home then use the absolute path (ie. /home/someone/doc, not ~/doc). Portage's ~ is ${PORTDIR}.
- This only works if the package's doc dir contains an "html" or "HTML" directory, and it links directly to that directory, which is unfortunate.
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June 9th, 2011
07:12 pm - Back again
Finally back online. Between graduating from SIAST in the field of Geomatics Technology, moving to Yorkton, starting back at work for Altus, getting dumped into the position of senior field surveyor for Mosaic's new potash mine, and working 60 hours every week, I haven't had the time until now to even get my internet hooked up, never mind unpack.
So if you're waiting on me to do something, I'll be with you in another month or so. I just have these 18000 emails to go through first...
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April 13th, 2011
01:55 am - Call for Barry testers
I just bumped app-pda/barry in the tree to version 0.17.1. This was a major ebuild rewrite that should fix a bunch of outstanding issues. Unfortunately I won't have access to my Blackberry until I go back to work next month so I was unable to do much in the way of runtime testing.
If you're a Barry user please give the new version a try and file bugs for any problems you run into. I'm not sure the udev rules are correct and have no idea how the tethering/pppd stuff works. The pppd files are just installed into /usr/share/doc for now since I'm not 100% sure where the proper place for them is. There is also a new plugin for opensync that could use some testing.
For more info on using Barry there is some good documentation at http://www.netdirect.ca/software/packages/barry
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February 26th, 2011
03:29 am - New laptop
My Thinkpad T61 has served me pretty well for the last couple of years but now it's time for something new. I shopped around a bit but ended up going back to Lenovo and customized a W510. It helped that right when I was trying to make a decision between brands they went on sale (coinciding with the release of Sandy Bridge?) and I got it for half of what I was expecting.
The shit:
Core i7-820QM Quad-core
16GB DDR3-1333 RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M (1GB DDR3)
Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN Wireless
500GB 7200RPM HD (no SSD for me, thanks)
I'm not big on nVidia, but I'm also less than impressed with the Intel GM965 I have now. The only laptop I could find with ATI wasn't even close to what I wanted (and cost more). I find myself needing good 3D for AutoCAD these days so I'll give it a try. I was also tempted to get an i7-940XM, but I just couldn't justify it.
So I expect to be elbow-deep in kernel configs and rebuilding for most of the weekend.
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February 25th, 2011
05:30 am - Faithless - Insomnia
Deep in the bosom of the gentle night
Is when I search for the light, pick up my pen and start to write
I struggle and fight dark forces in the clear moonlight
Without fear... insomnia
I can't get no sleep
I used to worry, thought I was going mad in a hurry
Getting stressed, making excess mess in darkness
No electricity, something's all over me, greasy
Insomnia please release me and let me dream
Of making mad love to my girl on the heath
Tearing off tights with my teeth
But there's no release, no peace, I toss and turn without cease
Like a curse, open my eyes and rise like yeast
At least a couple of weeks since I last slept
Kept taking sleepers, but now I keep myself pep
Deeper still, the night, I write by candlelight
I find insight, fundamental movement
So when it's black, this insomniac, taking original tack
Keep the beast in my nature under ceaseless attack
I gets no sleep
I can't get no sleep
Current Music: Faithless - Insomnia
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February 11th, 2011
10:27 pm - relative vs. absolute
Note to users of RTK GPS systems. Taking a check-shot two meters east of your base does not confirm your base coordinates are correct. It confirms you have successfully walked two meters east of your base.
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February 7th, 2011
04:56 pm - Prelink and glibc 2.13 warning
As phajdan.jr mentioned,
if you've upgraded to glibc-2.13 and you have prelink installed, assuming your system is still working:
- edit /etc/conf.d/prelink
- set PRELINKING=""
- run prelink -au
- uninstall prelink
If this is coming too late, then there are recovery instructions and bitching here:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-863281.html
https://bugs.gentoo.org/353814
Please keep the bitching in the forum thread. The bug is long enough.
I'm currently recovering my laptop, so I'm right there with you.
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November 20th, 2010
04:59 pm - GCC 4.5 unmasking tomorrow
Finally. I'm unmasking sys-devel/gcc-4.5.1 tomorrow. I recommend that everyone who has it installed already do a rebuild, as there have been some important patches added recently (see ChangeLog).
See my previous post for more info on upgrading.
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November 8th, 2010
07:31 pm - GCC 4.5 unmasking delay
As some have noticed, the weekend is over and we haven't unmasked GCC 4.5. Zorry alerted me to a bug that I forgot about (https://bugs.gentoo.org/341743) that breaks hardened bad and can be triggered in non-hardened with -fno-strict-overflow. A bug has been filed upstream.
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November 5th, 2010
12:19 am - GCC 4.5 unmasking and etc.
I was hoping to get GCC 4.5 unmasked much sooner than this, but I somehow got wrangled into running the field end of a big survey project at work and as a result I've been pretty much living out of a motel since mid-August. The good news is that thanks to the efforts of many very helpful people who aren't me, the last major packages that needed fixing are taken care of and we're finally ready to drop 4.5.1 into ~arch this weekend.
This is a major update so you may want to review our upgrade guide:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gcc-upgrading.xml
A rundown of the new features in this release can be found in the upstream release notes:
http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.5/changes.html
LWN ran an article highlighting some of the changes as well:
http://lwn.net/Articles/387122/
We will not be supporting Link-Time Optimization (LTO). It's there if you want to use it. Using it will most likely break your system. Graphite is supported in the sense that we won't automatically close bugs as INVALID as we did with 4.4. But we probably won't be spending a lot of time on them.
Bug #296658 tracks the remaining packages that are broken with GCC 4.5. You can also see the full list.
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