Alien Pastures

My thoughts on Slackware, life and everything

Category: Rant (Page 8 of 10)

So I finally packaged VLC 2.1. And what about LibreOffice?

September 29, 2013 / / 18 Comments

VLC

Finally, the daunting task of compiling 12 packages for VLC has come to completion. I created packages for the latest VLC 2.1 (codenamed ‘rincewind’… who the heck keeps thinking that these half-arsed nicks are useful). Like with the release candidate which I packaged last month, the internally used libraries are up to date again (ffmpeg, fluidsynth, libass, libcdio, libdc1394, libdvbpsi, libebml, libmatroska, libva, opus, orc, schroedinger, vcdimager, vo-amrwbenc, and x264).

Those of you who are running Slackware 13.37, 14.0 and -current will rejoice 🙂 That being said, it is likely that this is the last major VLC update for which I will produce a Slackware 13.37 package – the effort is just becoming too big.

The 2.1 release is the culmination of nearly two years of work by the team, squashing over a thousand bugs (although it is not mentioned anywhere how many of those were caused by actually coding the 2.1 branch). More importantly, the commit history shows that VLC is very much alive, evidenced by the fact that 140 code committers do not belong to the actual VideoLAN team. Good news because my expericnce was that the 1.x and 2.0 development cycles have actually caused a decrease in the quality and robustness of VLC as an allround media player. Let’s see if 2.1 will turn this around. With a new audio core and lots of work on improving the ports to other platform, I really hope that much of the deficits of the video decoders which made me switch back to MPlayer as my video app of choice, have been addressed as well.

Where to find my new VLC packages:

Rsync acccess is offered by the mirror server: rsync://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/people/alien/restricted_slackbuilds/vlc/ .

My usual warning about patents: versions that can not only DEcode but also ENcode mp3 and aac audio can be found in my alternative repository where I keep the packages containing code that might violate stupid US software patents.

libreoffce_logoLibreOffice

My latest LibreOffice packages (for Slackware 14) are version 4.0.5. In the meantime, those hard-working LibreOffice developers are almost at version 4.2.1… so what happened to the ‘alien’ builds of LibreOffice 4.1?

Well, during the packaging of 4.0 I noticed that the dictionaries which are now being offered as a source tarball, including many languages, needed another way of building and installing. I have been trying to find time to investigate and come up with proper packages, but I ran into a snag with the SlackBuild script and kept telling to myself that I would look into it right after the next KDE… OpenJDK… Calibre… whatever package would have been created. To be honest…. I am swamped with work during my paid daytime job and I spend more hours per week at work. It takes time to finish the bigger projects (like LibreOffice) in my spare time. Be patient, packages will be released eventually.

Oh yeah…

I helped my son today with the home-made pizza he had promised to create. I did something I realized I had never done before… I created the pizza dough from scratch: flour, yeast, water, olive oil, salt. Kneading the dough, seeing it rise and flattening it out to an oven-plate sized pizza bottom was very rewarding. Eating the pizza was rewarding as well! I have promised myself to finally bake that Focaccia bread which I have been wanting to try forever.

And finally:

Anyone with a Google Nexus tablet out there and experience with unlocking it, putting some brand of real Linux on it? I am going to pick up my own ARM port after Slackware 14.1 is released and besides my personal targets (getting it to boot on my TrimSlice and my ChromeBook) I was wondering how open the Google Nexus tablets really are with regard to having linux device drivers available. I am dead-curious about seeing how well Slackware behaves on a touch device… and both the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 look like they are awesome devices.

Be good! Eric

 

 

LibreOffice 4.0.3 packages ready for download (and a rant)

May 10, 2013 / / 11 Comments

LibreOffice 4.0.3

Yesterdaty I noticed the LibreOffice 4.0.3 release.by chance, and built Slackware 14 packages for it right away (they work on -current just as well).Noteworthy statement in these release notes is “LibreOffice 4.0.3 is another important step in the process of improving the quality and stability of the bleeding edge version of the suite, and facilitating migrations to free software by governments and enterprises“.

Relating to that statement, a personal rant is about to burst.

Because there is another interesting tidbit in those release notes: “another large migration to LibreOffice has been announced, as the government of Spain’s autonomous region of Extremadura has just begun the switch to free software of desktop PCs and expects the majority of its 40,000 PCs to be migrated by the end of 2013. Extremadura estimates that the move to open source – including LibreOffice – will help save 30 million Euro per year.“. I remember that the decision by the Extremadura government (this is a county in Spain with low industrialisation and therefore not rich) to move completely to Open Source was made more than 6 years ago. Cool to read about this achievement. I wish the dutch government had more focus on adopting Open Source and Open Standards… so far it has been an eternal uphill battle against the minions of Microsoft. I know, because I have been involved in several pilots, proposals and projects over the past 10 years.

Anyway, I am open to discussion about this, you dutchies and others!

Back to the topic of using LibreOffice on our cool Slackware platform. Get the packages from my 14.0 package repository while they are hot! If you are still running Slackware 13.37 you should stick with LibreOffice 3.6.6 for which I also have packages.

They are also available from several mirrors. Remember, the mirror sites usually have a bigger bandwidth available than the master site! If you are a mirror administrator, and want to be added to the list, contact me.

Here is the shortlist:

You can subscribe to the repository’s RSS feed if you want to be the first to know when new packages are uploaded.

Cheers, Eric

Only 24 hours in a day

April 2, 2013 / / 3 Comments

cat_asleep

During the Easter weekend, I have been working on almost 150 SlackBuild script updates for my ARM hardfloat port. That costs time… and with several setbacks like creating a new gcc-4.8.0 compiler package which then refuses to compile anything else; a new glibc-2.17 package which causes segfaults of every binary after installation (an exclusive ARM hardfloat issue apparently); the creation of a new llvm package which was needed for icu4c to compile on an ARM platform took NINE hours to complete, so I had to setup distcc and a new cross-compiler on my AMD Phenom build server to distribute the load… and then it was Easter too!

So, I am a bit behind on other stuff I wanted to do. The new KDE 4.10.2 is around the corner and I am going to provide Slackware 14 packages (Pat will hopefully update the KDE in slackware-curent at the same time). There is also the new LibreOffice 4.0.2 which I want to make available for Slackware 14. Even LibreOffice 3.6.6 was released in the rock-stable old 3.6 branch (for which I am going to create Slackware 13.37 packages). KDE just started compiling here, and that will take most of tomorrow to finish (the 32-bit packages will be created while I am away for work). That means, don’t expect LibreOffice packages before friday.

But what I really want is some more sun, higher day temperatures and an end to this horribly cold and hard East-wind!

Eric

Call for help: Slackware on an ARM Chromebook?

March 19, 2013 / / 37 Comments

Well folks, the ARM-powered Chromebook built by Samsung can finally be bought in the Netherlands, and this raises a hairy question. Should I buy one and have a real-life target for my ARM port of Slackware which has been on the backburner for a year?

As you may remember, I started an ARM port of Slackware which is different from SlackwareARM.The design goals I have set for my own port are:

  1. it should have SlackBuild scripts which are compatible with official Slackware – i.e. Pat Volkerding should be able to just grab an unaltered script for the ARM port and build a 64-bit Slackware package with it
  2. it should target modern ARM architectures. SlackwareARM targets older generations of ARM CPU’s – notably without hardware floating point support. I want to create a port which can be used on “powerful” ARM tablets, and laptops.
  3. it should be a port from scratch and the process should be documented

I bought a TrimSlice ARM computer late 2011 but unfortunately that hardware did not live up to the promise.It is a nice developer box (meaning it builds packages faster than other ARM computers) but it has not become a consumer product.

I have been thinking about buying a tablet as my new target for the ARM port, but there are no interesting hardware choices really which warrant the effort I have to spend on making Slackware work really well on a touch device. There are some tablets which are catering for Open Source OS-es, like The ZaTab, but it is relatively expensive, not too powerful and this too, never became a viable consumer product. The Vivaldi tablet created by KDE developers is still awaiting its birth and I have no idea if this tablet will be more than a gimmick or even vaporware.

And here is that ARM powered ChromeBook! With 7 hours of battery life, no moving parts, fan-less design, a real keyboard and an exceptional screen (I have held one in my hands) it does not come with any local storage of interest… because it runs ChromeOS on a 16 GB SD card, and you are supposed to store and access all your stuff online in a Google Drive. But, if this laptop would run Slackware, you could add a larger SD card, or plug in a USB hard drive and have a very interesting laptop indeed!

Well, here is the catch. I do not have the funds to buy this laptop. Financially it is looking a bit bland here at the moment. There is some donation money coming in every month, but that is a trickle and does not even pay the electricity bill for the server (which is OK since this is not my job, it is my hobby after all).And this laptop has been eyeing at me from its Google web page, and I seriously like it, and like to have one. I know that Stuart Winter (creator of SlackwareARM) bought one for himself and is working on a SlackwareARM boot.

I decided that there is only one way in which I can revive my own ARM port, and build a hard-float ARM image of Slackware with KDE for that ChromeBook. And that is to ask you people for support.



Note that I already received those 300 euros I needed to purchase the ChromeBook… in fact I received three times as much! As explained on the ARM Port page, the additional money will go into the purchase of additional hardware after I finish the ARM port, or earlier if I need more ARM computers to speed up the compiling process.

Yes, a “donate” button. What I propose is that I try to collect the 299 euros in donation money that it will cost to buy the ARM ChromeBook in the Netherlands. The “donate” button above will lead to a PayPal page where you can contribute an amount of money that you can spare. I will create a blog page http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/armport on which I will keep track of the progress and will mention everyone who made a donation to this cause. If you do not want your name listed,  you can tell me so on the donation page.

In return for the donation money, assuming I am able to collect these 299 euros:

  • I will resume my ARM hard-float porting effort (yes, this may affect the update frequency of other packages I maintain).
  • That porting effort will not be “behind the curtains” like it has been so far. I will upload packages and scripts and will welcome ideas and feedback
  • The Chromebook will be the target hardware to build a bootable Slackware image.
  • I will upload the from-scratch cross-compiler and minirootfs which I created already, to start with
  • I am going to document on docs.slackware.com about porting to a new architecture from scratch.
  • I will also tickle Pat Volkerding’s interest in the ARM port.

I do think that this ARM ChromeBook might be a real viable consumer product worth buying by more than just developers and geeks, and if Slackware runs on it that would be awesome!

What do you think? Am I crazy to ask you for support money? And what if I do get money, but more than 300 euros? Should I try to buy another ARM product (like, a tablet) or return the surplus money? If I fail to collect those 300 euros, people will get their donations back in any case. Feel free to spread the link to this page so it gains some more attraction.

Eric

Busy days, not Slackware related

July 11, 2012 / / 20 Comments

In the next days or weeks, I am going to try and rest and re-vitalize myself. It would be a waste of effort if I burnt myself out. But the shitty weather does not help. Who feels like it is summer in Europe? I have just emptied the buckets in the hallway which caught the water seeping through the crack in the roof… repair money is not available right now.

During the past week, there were many such distractions to keep me away from hacking at Slackware. This will likely remain unchanged during the next weeks. We had a fire in the kitchen, which caused damage (the stove and oven were destroyed), but luckily no one got hurt! It takes time to invite experts to assess the damage, arrange repairs and such. I als got hooked on some e-books I had loaded onto my Sony E-reader… reading is eating away precious time faster than you think!

Anyway, all this distraction had consequences for the package pipeline. With regular releases of KDE, LibreOffice, OpenJDK and VLC – all pretty big builds – my free time is increasingly limited to building updates for these aforementioned programs. It is frustrating at times that I have to make an advance planning because especially KDE and LibreOffice releases tend to come at roughly the same time. Building in several virtual machines at the same time hurts my server’s performance and it does not help the total build time per program…

Also, I really need to pick up the pace with my new but currently stalled ARM port of Slackware (which will have differences to the existing ARMedslack port). I am talking to some people about what would be a cool computer to own which really should be running Slackware. The outcome of those discussions I will reserve for a future post, because I will probably need assistance.

That is why I decided that I am not going to build packages for the upcoming KDE 4.9-rc2. I will wait for the final release of 4.9.0 instead.

I will try to get LibreOffice packages compiled for the 3.5.5 release which was announced today. It depends on the errors I encounter during compilation… I do not have time to hunt compilation issues down and fix them. So, fingers crossed!

End of rant.

Eric

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