setting up nepomuk properly with kde 4.3

Ever since I installed arch linux nepomuk was never starting properly.( Not that I use it extensively but still when some thing is now working it irritates me ;) )

So after so may digging and with help for people from kde forums I finally got it working correctly.

Steps I did.
1. stop akonadi
2. delete ~/.config/akonadi
3. delete ~/.local/share/akonadi/
4. start akonadi ( dont remember if I restarted or not)
5. from konsole run kres-migrator

After this I got my akonadi started but had mysql error logs. For that you need to run

mysql_install_db --datadir=$HOME/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/ when akonadi is stopped.

http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=83092

http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=83021

Why Arch ?

My frustrations with kubuntu have been growling lately as in latest stuff is always available with the aplhas of next release and are prone to bugs which can affect the core work of me. Of course I can run my kubuntu with PPA's which can give me the bleeding edge stuff. What I wanted was bleeding edge and some stability. The moment I tried arch linux in my virtual box I knew I am gonna love it and I am not disappointed.
What arch offers is a simple system which follows the KISS principle.What ever you want configure and the result is a system that is fast and has only stuff that is ac tally needed.
What ever I need right from X, kde I had to configure and install myself.

And arch linux has a vast resources of wiki pages which will instruct us to set up our system the way we and and its complete and almost perfect.

What I am interested most is KDE and I love it. There is a project called chakra project which has their own tweaked kde versions which provides extra eyecandy on top of arch and excellent tools like shaman(package manager).

What I liked is also the fact that arch has rolling release schedule which suites my taste. As soon as a new version appears I can have it no need to wait for the next distribution release or add new PPA's for the same

Kubuntu -> Arch Linux

After 4 years with kubuntu I finally moved to arch linux. I have been thinking for a while to switch to arch linux, ever since my not so good experience with jaunty. I have been trying out karmic alphas and as of last Friday I was running a fully updated karmic alpha 5. Then on Friday I switched to arch Linux. I was planning to complete the set on Friday from office itself, but the initial cd I burned was damaged and I thought I can complete the setup back home.

Before trying out set up myself I tried it on virtual box and my initial impression was just awesome.

Before last Friday I had a dual boot setup with XP and kubuntu karmic alpha. I was planning to install arch on the same ext4 partition as karmic, but the partition manager in arch installer was cribbing about bad cylinder something in my extended partition where karmic have been. (I forgot the exact error. Bad memory). Then I thought why I need the dual boot setup. So I decided to remove XP completely and have arch alone. So I gave the installer permission to use the entire hard disk and it did.

The setup took barely 15 minutes and then I booted into my arch Linux. Well only thing I had was a terminal no desktop environment and all. It was a plain system with and I had to setup what ever I wanted to have.

It already been a long post The configuration hassles I will follow up in another post.

kubuntu jaunty Network manager plasma applet gets a major overhaul

At last ubuntu guys updated to the nm plasma applet to SVN version which fixed some most annoying bugs which made me use gnome nm applet for some time. One was the applet not remembering saved settings which caused it ask for wire less settings if it gets disconnected.

This is fixed and still some issues remain which is it cannot be used for vpnc connections the settings just won't work, its not even saving anything. Other than that it's pretty much OK to be used in desktop.

End of woes with X and intel graphics?

In my last post I talked about issues I faced with X and my intel graphics. I wished that was the end of story, but not. There was 2 other issues I discovered.
X crash on laptop lid close
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22383 and
X crash on kde 4 log out.
http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20867

Fortunately the laptop lid close one has been fixed and there is a work around for kde 4 log out issue.
For users of ubuntu jaunty latest intel driver package xorg-xserver-video-intel from xorg-edgers PPA has fix for the laptop lid issue.

For laptop lid issue edit /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc and add
TerminateServer=true under [X-*-Core]

This option will make kdm to restart X server instead of reusing it.

My X adventure with kubuntu jaunty.

As many of us might know, ubuntu januty has serious X related problems because of bugs in xorg intel driver and some in kernel itself. As one of the early adopters of jaunty from the aplha stages itself, I was among early set of users who experienced the full fury of this bug. X server just locks up, though we can move mouse nothing works, but we can ssh to the box and use it.

This is the bug I reported for this issue
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/359392

The bug report says all what is the issue and work around.
Jaunty is shipped with kernel 2.6.28 and xserver-xorg-video-intel based on 2.6

The X infrastructure is in a flux because of architectural changes and that was the root cause of all issues. Read this article to know what changed
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/the_new_xorg_features

I even tried compiling the x server from scratch using instruction from here
http://wiki.x.org/wiki/Development/git
But it was too bleeding edge and freezes on alt-tab switch. ( May be I didn't digg enough to fix that). I was already mad at ubuntu and was planning to switch to Arch or Fedora 11. But al distros has the issues as the problem is with mainstream. Atleast the distros could have chosen to stick with stable old code.

So the solution to these problems requires newer kernel 2.6.30 and latest xserver-xorg-video-intel 2.7.99.* which is still under development though stable enough for use.

You can get the latest kernel for ubuntu from here
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

To get the latest x server and xserver-xorg-video-intel we need to enable this ppa
https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

Then do an upgrade and enjoy. But beware after installing the packages from the xorg-edgers PPA only acceleration method available will be UXA and support for EXA and XXA have been dropped in favour of UXA.

If you want a little bit more excitement you can enable KMS ( kernel mode setting). KMS shifts the job of identifying and setting up graphics mode from X server to linux kernel. Follow instructions here for enabling kms and learn more about it.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/KernelModeSetting

I have been using this set for 2 days and enabled KMS today morning and performance has been great.

Making gnome-keyring unlock iteslf on login in kde

This part is very easy if you are using gnome and gdm. But the part that I use kdm and nm-applet uses keyring made matters worse for me. As of now nm-applet is the only decent UI for network manager.
So after hours of search and reading existing bug reports I arrived at the solution for me. Though I am using ubuntu I got the solution from a fedora bug report.

First we need to edit /etc/pam.d/kdm . I added these to it
auth optional pam_gnome_keyring.so
session optional pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start

Also the important part is if you have been already using gnome-key-ring by default your data such as wifi WEP2 key will go to the default keyring. This make this setup fail. So you need to delete the existing keyrings. So that new ones will go to login keyring.

What I am frustrated is that there is no consistent way for kdm users to use this feature. It took me hours of frustrating searching to arrive at this working set up.

2 Applications kubuntu jaunty users should ditch for a better user experience

The ones I am talking about is KPackage kit and networkmanger-palsma-applet. Both are a joke. They are currently under development and is never ready for general usage.

Network Manager Plasma is the worst, It cannot reconnect wireless without re typing password and cannot manage vpn connections and confuses uses by showing vpn options.
KPackage kit can just do the basic stuff, you can click and install and search , thats its nothing more. When downloading it cannot show the details of what it is doing.(Though there is a details tab its disabled) And the history button makes you laugh. It shows the last cache refreshed time.

So users (like me) who are frustrated with these two applications must move to nm-applet(gnome one) and synaptics package manager which in my opinion should be shipped with kubuntu jaunty.

Synaptic and gtk style in kde

All kubuntu users who prefer synaptic might have noticed how ugly it looks. All gnome applications running on sudo or kdesudo looks same as such applications look for gtk style under /root which do not have the gtk style.
In my kde I am using qtcurve kde 4 version. TO fix this issue i simple copies the gtk file to root directory.

sudo cp ~/.gtkrc-2.0-kde4 /root/.gtkrc-2.0

Now my synaptic has the beautiful qtcurve style. But when ever you change the gtk style for gnome applications by kde system settings , you will have to copy them to root's home directory if it needs to be updated for synaptic package manager

Back To Wndows XP From Ubuntu Jaunty

Well this post undermines the very existence of this blog. I have been following ubuntu jaunty from the alpha releases. In between in switched from alpha to beta something happened, it broke the intel graphics. Users are getting frequent X freezes and only way out is rebooting the system using the MAGIC sysreq keys R S E I U B.


I have been using this in my office laptop in search for a perfect KDE 4.2 distro and it was a frustration because it crashed when I was checking mails or working on something. Now we have the final ubuntu release, but where does this bug stand. Unfortunately its still there and funny thing is that no one knows why this is happening, finally some xorg.conf settings have been proposed which increases the virtual size in xorg and still its not clear why this fixes the issue. All distos using intel driver > 2.5 seems to be affected especially intel 965 chipset users, like me.

Well I could live with this fix, but the annoying issues in jaunty is far from over. Most disappointment is the kde itself. The applications running is having repaint issues, some application like amarok, kmail, quassel are like having holes in them with areas not getting painted showing the background. Some blame on qt others on kde and some in intel.

And finally the most annoying issue I faced in jaunty is the detection of usb devices. Some times it takes 30 mins for my usb to device to get detected. In the mean time I can see on dmesg message
unable to enumerate USB device on port *
getting printed for the time till the usb is detected.

There are bugs for all these and no response from anyone. Well I just cannot spend my entire day trying to ponder why this is not working.
Every time I log in to ubuntu its thinking on what might not work today and the first thing a user wants is a stable environment to use.

After doing all help to make ubuntu beautiful and seeing that still its not working, then there is something wrong with the entire process. That says all and I am back to Windows XP.

Using XP after using kubuntu jaunty is like using windows 98 after using Windows Vista/XP. At least everything works as intended.

Prevent Gnome apps autostart in KDE ( or vice versa)

If you are a user (like me) who runs both gnome and kde together and finds that some of the auto starting applications meant for either gnome only or kde only are running in both desktops , then /etc/xdg/autostart is the directory to look for.
In this directory we can see .desktop files of auto starting applications. For preventing an application from auto starting in KDE edit the applications .desktop file and add OnlyShowIn=GNOME;
For preventing a KDE application from running in Gnome add
OnlyShowIn=KDE; to that applications .desktop file and you are done

Kde 4.2.1 rocks

Hi guys kde folks have released kde 4.2.1
http://kde.org/announcements/announce-4.2.1.php
In one work amazing. The have fixed many annoying bugs i faced with 4.2.0.
One was performance issue with desktop effects enabled. Xorg was taking too much of cpu and my system was damn slow. Its better now with 4.2.1.
Now big changes happened in kopete. Yahoo messenger service was in a way broken in previous releases. Problems ranged from frequent disconnection to contact photos not being displayed at all.
And all have been fixed. Kudos to kopete team.

So any one using 4.2 must update to 4.2.1 it helps you to love kde even more.

iTunes Migrating To VirtualBox Guest Windows

OK I got iTunes running in my Guest Windows( VirtualBox term for the OS running through VirtualBox). Next my challenge was to migrate my iTunes Library from to my Guest Windows, so that my iPod will work exactly the same as before without affecting the existing synchronisation between iPod and existing iTunes Collection.

I moved all my Music to an external Hard Disk and I need to make iTunes library to point to their new physical location. The iTunes folder which has all the library data and other configuration files is "My Documents/My Music/iTunes" . I copied this folder to the same location in my Guest Windows.

There is a file in iTunes folder called iTunes Music Library.xml. I edited it to change the file location. It was just search and replace. But the thing is iTunes won't read the file. It has a binary representation of the file. Now we need to corrupt that file so that iTunes will build the binary again with updated folder location. Just open the file "iTunes Library.itl" and delete everything and save.

Next time iTunes start it will give a warning saying that "iTunes Library.itl" has been corrupted and it is going to rebuild it. After that is done iTunes will work like a charm , the same way as in your old Windows. Just connect your iPod and see it syncing what ever you have configured.

If you have configured to syn your photos, you will have to configure that again . Copy your photos folder to your Guest Windows and configure iPod to sync with that directory.

What I did for iTunes in Linux

I have an iPod dilemma was which application to use to manage it. There are great application in linux like Amarok,SongBird which are good but only to an extend( certainly only for iPod) . They don't support album art which I love to have. Songbird even corrupts existing ones u transferred from iTunes.
So I was determined to have only use my iPod with iTunes. So I decided to install windows using VirtualBox. The installation went smoothly and soon I logged into Windows XP. Networking was working fine. Ir just worked out of the box I was able to browse Internet. ( Of course I did allocate a good 512 MB RAM for my virtual windows and 5 GB of disk space).
But one and may be only one thing I wanted was not working - USB devices. There was a work around like this
sudo mount -t usbfs none /proc/bus/usb/ -o devgid=130,devmode=666
Fortunately after I installed all windows updates even without this hack it worked out of the box :). Don't ask me what changed.
Then everythig got perfect the Windows worked perfectly fine inside VirtualBox.

KDE 4.2 on kubuntu

Hi all. I installed kde 4.2 on my kubuntu box from kubuntu kde experimental repository.
You can install it following instructions from following link.

http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2
I find it much better than beta releases and in one word awesome. But it still uses some kde 3 apps like knetwork manager, conversation .. which are replaced completely in jaunty. KDE guys have developed a nice network manager plasma applet which integrates controlling of your wired and wireless network to plasma ( the desktop shell for kde 4 series) itself. Quassel is the new irc client for kubuntu which is written in qt4. I installed it but haven't tried.

But sometimes I find my system very slow. Don't know what could be the reason. I am planning to install jaunty alpha and format my system to ext4 file system, heard it has better performance that ext3.

I am planning to start some development work for kde 4, if God blesses me with enough time and enthusiasm. But I seriously want to contribute back to the community.

Long absence

Hi everyone. It been a long time since I last posted something. Part of it can be blamed on my hectic work. ( I work for Yahoo). I am almost done with my part.
To describe the utilities I use for work , I am a fan of Eclipse.
http://www.eclipse.org/
We use cvs for our version control and merging and branching is an easy task in eclipse which is otherwise a pain using non GUI cvs command ( though cannot completely avoid ).
Then I started using vim heavily, though it does not have the heavy feature sets of eclipse. I know it can be extended a lot with plugins. But didn't get time for digging deep.

Now that I am finding more free time I will be posting more frequently.