Date: 2008-04-16 01:07 Subject: Moving my blog... Security: Public

LiveJournal has been really frustrating me recently spammers and with the lack of OpenID. I've moved my blog here.

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Date: 2008-04-15 10:30 Subject: OpenID Security: Public

I've had about a billion people to ask me to enable OpenID on my blog. The only way I can enable OpenID is to also allow anonymous postings (!!) and when I do that I get 50+ spam a day to sort through. I think it's LJ just being difficult.

Ideally I want to move away from LiveJournal as I have the free account that is getting more stupid every month and the spam problem is getting worse, even just allowing registered users.

Does anyone know how I apply for a blog at blogs.gnome.org? I've tried, but Sorry, that email address is not allowed so I'm guessing I need a @gnome.org email address.

Any other ideas?

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Date: 2008-04-14 16:03 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

UPDATED! Thanks for the comments!

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Date: 2008-04-14 01:47 Subject: PackageKit and Debian Security: Public

I've finally solved all the issues with PackageKit and Debian - I present the new gnome-packagekit frontend for Debian:

Joking aside, Debian and Ubuntu can work just fine with PackageKit, I'm really not sure what all the noise is about.

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Date: 2008-04-13 00:59 Subject: Using PackageKit in GNOME programs Security: Public

Do you develop a GNOME program and want to install extra stuff for your application? Want me to write you some code for your application to make it "just work"?

Ideas I can think of:

• Installing extensions in epiphany
• Installing debuginfos in the GNOME crasher thing
• Installing language packs in abiword
• Installing clipart for scribus
• Installing -devel packages in anjuta for the autocompletion
• Making GIMP install it's own plugins when an obscure file format is opened

Any other suggestions welcome. Please email me if you want some help. You can install a package based on the package name, or just by specifying a file that the package provides. All the yucky stuff like licence agreements and GPG auth is handled in libpackagekit-gnome.

You'll need to be running Fedora 9 prerelease if you want precompiled rpm's that work. I'll make the code a configure option (--enable-packagekit) so it won't be a hard dep. Any takers?

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Date: 2008-04-12 13:23 Subject: New PackageKit coolness Security: Public

Here's some stuff that now works properly:

Notice the new checkbox to cut the repo list down to a sane size?


Notice the new 'All packages' group?


Now we tell you if we add deps!

In other, more interesting news, there's now a new library on the street, libpackagekit-gnome.

This shared library will allow integration with GTK dialogs for the common prompts, gconf for licence preferences and hopefully gnome-keyring for the gpg auth stuff. It basically makes adding software in your GNOME application super trivial. More information and samples to come when I've got some gtk-doc documentation.

Richard.

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Date: 2008-04-07 15:30 Subject: Add or remove all in a treeview Security: Public

In gpk-update-viewer, the user can select with checkboxes which updates should be applied. This is fine, until you want to uncheck or check them all at once, where for 300 updates, unclicking each box seems tiresome.

Matthias suggested a checkbox in the treeview header (but can't remember where he had seen that) and I quite like a right-click context menu. The open bug is here. Ideas welcome.

Thanks!

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Date: 2008-04-02 02:07 Subject: GLib gperf Security: Public

Dear Lazyweb,

Is there a more modern, GLib'ish version of gperf? I want to go from string->enum and emun->string faster than just using strcmp in a loop. I don't think I want to use GHashTable as it needs to be bi-directional. I like nice compact simple C code, and don't like awk in makefiles. Ideas?

Richard.

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Date: 2008-03-31 19:23 Subject: New pm-utils release Security: Public

Today I've released into the wild pm-utils 1.1.0.

Please see the wiki page for more details about the release.

Most of the problems distros have had with pm-utils should be addressed in this release. We'll be doing far more frequent releases now, so expect another release sometime in the next month.

Thanks to all involved in this release.

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Date: 2008-03-28 17:46 Subject: PackageKit and gnome-packagekit 0.1.10 Security: Public

Today I released PackageKit and gnome-packagekit 0.1.10.

PackageKit release notes.
gnome-packagekit release notes.

Tarballs available here.

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Date: 2008-03-28 14:07 Subject: Clicking of snd_hda_intel Security: Public

I've installed Fedora 9 Beta on a laptop with a snd_hda_intel sound card. Every time that alsa powers up the card (from, I guess, a sleep state) I get a speaker and ear popping *click* before the sound effect.

I've found Linux is being very aggressive in powering down my soundcard by setting CONFIG_SND_HDA_POWER_SAVE_DEFAULT=5 (seconds).

I was playing with the timeout like this:

echo 0 > /sys/module/snd_hda_intel/parameters/power_save

So I can actually use my laptop, I've disabled the powersaving doing this:

sudo echo "options snd_hda_intel power_save=0" >> /etc/modprobe.conf

So, is it:

• My laptop being crap that it can't power on the soundard with out a DC click.


• Linux setting a much too low timeout value


• An ALSA bug that is worth pursuing?

Ideas welcome.

Richard.

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Date: 2008-03-28 01:50 Subject: ServicePack : User Interface Security: Public

Quite a common use case for Linux is where PC's are installed on computers without internet access, or where internet access is very expensive.

So, enter PackageKit. You insert a CDROM or USB pendrive with updates on. The following UI appears:

You click "yes" and then the update icon appears as if you were online. You click "Update system" and then the update proceeds as if you were online.

Plus, because the local media is an actual repo, you can also use the Add/Remove software tool as normal.

Nothing is in git master yet, although I've got a local branch that I'll probably merge after 0.1.10 is released.

Comments appreciated.

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Date: 2008-03-12 20:25 Subject: PackageKit Google Summer of Code Ideas Security: Public

PackageKit Google Summer of Code Ideas:

• urpmi backend for Mandriva
• portage backend for Gentoo
• ports backend for FreeBSD
• Rewrite opyum or APTonCD to support libpackagekit and be distribution neutral
• Design a KDE front-end suitable for upstream inclusion
• Profiling for memory and speed with a security review of the packagekitd daemon
• Design of an end-to-end test harness for .rpm and .deb on temporary
  repositories for complete self check

If you are interested in any of these ideas then please email me and I'll give you more details.

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Date: 2008-03-12 18:19 Subject: PEDRO MACANAS VALVERDE Security: Public

PEDRO MACANAS VALVERDE: please stop posting useless random shit on mailing lists. I've warned you before.

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Date: 2008-03-11 21:41 Subject: gtk-doc legend needed Security: Public

I think I've included the right markup, but the current web documentation looks like rubbish.

I really can't convince gtk-doc to recognize that the signals are signals, or to pick up the markup and descriptions that I've so lovingly explained.

Any help really appreciated.

EDIT: Dan Winship to the rescue: it's because your object struct name doesn't have a "_" at the beginning of it ie, it has to be "typedef struct _PkClient PkClient"

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Date: 2008-03-05 20:07 Subject: A very stupid thing Security: Public

I've just done something very stupid: I dropped my laptop.

It must have fell about 30cm onto soft carpet, and now the screen is broken in about 3 places. My excuse is that I've had a super long day at work, and I'm not feeling great, but I'm just so frustrated with myself.

I'm guessing a replacement screen ~= the price of a new laptop, and I just don't have that kind of money right now. Hence, I'll be offline until I can get hold of an external monitor, which, living in a flat the size of a shoebox, might be hard to find a home for.

In a few weeks I'll be starting at Red Hat, where they are buying me a nice work machine, but until then all major hacking will have to be paused.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

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Date: 2008-03-04 22:48 Subject: PackageKit and gnome-packagekit 0.1.9 Security: Public

New versions!

PackageKit release notes.
gnome-packagekit release notes.

Tarballs available here.

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Date: 2008-03-01 01:28 Subject: Another GTK Problem Security: Public

Dear lazyweb,

Anybody know how I can put embedded links (for example http://www.moo.com) into a GtkTreeView? Please tell me I don't need to create my own renderer. Ideas welcome, code snippets or links rewarded with beer.

Thanks.

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Date: 2008-02-25 15:44 Subject: FOSDEM 2008 Security: Public

So another year, another great FOSDEM. On Sunday I presented an introduction to PackageKit. The slides are now online for any that missed it.

For those of you I met, it was great to see you. I was really worried I didn't get a chance to say hi to some key people, so if I didn't grab you and say thanks then I apologize, and I hope to shake your hand soon.

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Date: 2008-02-21 19:18 Subject: PackageKit and gnome-packagekit 0.1.8 released! Security: Public

Today I released PackageKit and gnome-packagekit 0.1.8.

You really want to update to these if you are using 0.1.7 - which had a nice bug causing pk-update-icon to crash.
PackageKit release notes and gnome-packagekit release notes.

Tarballs available here.

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