European Wafaa

So it was announced the other day that 0.3.1 was released to fix a few bugs, as always the RPMs are out there ready and waiting for your pleasure and hopefully not too much pain

I did notice an issue with them after I upgraded to the latest release - I managed to "break" all my other websites. I have amended the .spec file so that it does NOT copy the default bongo.conf apache config file across as doing so leads to my aforementioned breakage. If you are upgrading it means you no longer have to delete the file from you apache config directory (something I keep forgetting). However if you are installing from new you WILL need to copy either bongo.conf to your webserver's config directory or its contents to a virtual host file. You can find bongo.conf at /usr/share/bongo/examples/

Dear mighty openSUSE hackers,

With the impending Hack Week please may I ask for something? What I would like is this but obviously for the openSUSE/Novell Bugzilla I have been meaning to try my hand at it, but to be honest I'm an uber dufus when it comes to hackery (unless it involves and axe or machete).

I appreciate that this is a GNOME applet, but to you KDE folks out there I would be happy yo get a KDE applet to go on my KDE machine (Yes I run both )

Yours graciously,

An Incompetent hacker

Ok so I'm getting closer to having a fully functioning Vaio

Thanks to Alex Hixon's work on the Ricoh r5u870 driver I have a working webcam. Another item that is now working is accelerated 3D using the NVidia Go7600GT card and the NVidia blob drivers, the only problem I have had is that KDE3 experiences the "White Cube of Death" but GNOME and KDE4 work fine.

Three items that I would really like to get working to make it even more usable are:

*1. The Memory Card reader. The Memory Stick slot still doesn't work, when I plug a card in all I get is
kernel: tifm_core: MemoryStick card detected in socket 0:0
Funny, I went to compare the output from SD/MMC slot and that doesn't work either (I could have sworn it did!) it just spews the same as the MS slot bar the position change
kernel: tifm_core: MMC/SD card detected in socket 0:1
According to lspci -vvv the memory card reader is
0a:03.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
Subsystem: Sony Corporation Unknown device 81fd
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- SERR- Latency: 64 (1750ns min, 1000ns max), Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
Interrupt: pin B routed to IRQ 17
Region 0: Memory at d2004000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
Anyone got a clue as to how to get the blessed thing to work properly?

*2. Power Management. It blows, and I mean blows goats in a big way. This is a DE agnostic issue as both GNOME and KDE suffer badly. This laptop doesn't have the best lifespan on the standard battery (about 90mins), but currently it is reported and treated as half that. When I boot into the bundled OS to update the firmware of various components it last almost the full match. Again, any ideas as to sharpen this aspect up?

*3. Digital/Analogue TV tuner. This I haven't looked into in great detail. Knowing people's experience would be really good. The hardware is
0a:04.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7133/SAA7135 Video Broadcast Decoder (rev d1)
Subsystem: Avermedia Technologies Inc Unknown device e836
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- SERR- Latency: 64
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 23
Region 0: Memory at d2006800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME

You can get the latest package for for 10.3 here and 11.0 here, make sure you install r5u870 and r5u870-kmp-. I know the package needs a bit more work, but I'll hopefully get that done by the end of the month FOSDEM may prove a good place to do that and once tidy I'll definately have 1Click and maybe I can get it into drivers:webcam. If not then it will to wait till the next Packaging Weekend

So the Bongo Lightning Talk is confirmed for FOSDEM on Saturday 23rd @ 1740, you can see the full Lightning Talk schedule here. I was hoping to get the time slot moved earlier so I could participate in more of the openSUSE talks, but never mind. I'm just glad that they accepted Bongo

So please, come one and all.

As some people may know suseROCKS and myself have been battling to get the latest cheese release working for some time with minimal success, actually that should be with total failure

This failure has highlighted the fact that getting webcams to work under GNOME can be pretty hit and miss at times. This is especially painful for the likes of Bryen, as being deaf video is an essential means of communication (or soon will be). Together we have now mad a Holy Grail out of webcams, and we will strive to venture forward and make webcams as easy on openSUSE as they are on other OSes. Be warned though it could well turn into a quest similar to Monty Python's, I just hope we don't meet the dreaded beast.

One issue is that there are multiple drivers for multiple webcams and both of us are using different ones, this can also be an advantage as it means we can speed up testing. I am using a VGP-VCC2 which uses the Ricoh r5u870 driver, and Bryen is using a Logitech 9000 which uses the UVC driver. As we are using GStreamer library there is one other issue - GStreamer has a known bug which hampers v4l2. This should be fixed with a new release of gst-plugins-good any time now to resolve the issue.

One app that Bryen mentioned and I thought would be fun to try is Yahoo!Live, no it isn't a spoof of a Yahoo! and Microsoft marriage but a way for people to easily stream videao from their webcam. One problem with this service is that it uses Flash, and neither of us seem to be able to get our webcams to work with it For example see the shots below, the first one is from 10.3 and the second is from WinXP:


Where's the feed gone?


I see you 20/20

My webcam works a treat with Cheese 0.2.4 (yes the old version) and also with the GStreamer properties "Test" function, so I know it works. Bryen is able to use Ekiga no problems at all with his camera but gets a similar result from Y! Live.

I'm hoping FOSDEM will be able to enlighten me into the ways of Webcams, but in the meantime if anyone has more info then please shout out loudly - either here, by mail or on #opensuse-gnome

Finally Sony have managed to win a format war, see el reg and the Beeb. Hooray!!!!!

Why so cheerful? Well I have a vested interest in Blu-Ray with both a PS3 and a blu-ray burner in my VAIO AR11S laptop. Now the only thing remaining is for full support for burning to the format, as it stands Linux can read blu-ray data discs without issue as it is in UDF. I haven't been able to get K3b or Brasero to burn a data disc , so far the only burner that I can tell that supports the 25GB and 50GB discs is Nero 3, which of course isn't ideal (ethical, moral, financial, etc - take your pick )

The chances of being able to view a BD Video are slimmer than a wafer thin mint as it doesn't use standard libdvdcss but a variant of it. I have seen a howto somewhere ( I think it was a bunty one using Wine and some other dubious means) which I really couldn't be bothered with.

The task of getting this working on openSUSE is somewhat linked into getting my VAIO fully functioning under the Geeko, so I won't be creating yet another task to do. As always though if you genius hackers, enthusiasts and lunatics out there can help then please do!

With a million thanks to The Vicar of Bursledon for pointing out the error of my ways and to Stanislav Brabec for updating GStreamer, I am pleased to say that the latest release of Cheese is available on the Build Service.




Your mileage may well vary, and if it doesn't work for you please let me know (don't shout) and also the cheese developers (possibly shout).

I'm at FOSDEM and did my Lightning Talk yesterday, and I think it went pretty well. Thankfully there were a fair few pertinent questions so hopefully that means that people were awake and paying attention

For those that couldn't make it you can get my slides here. Hopefully there will be a video of the talk released shortly, Once out I'll let you know where to get it from. Many thanks to the FOSDEM organisers for this and the whole event.

I really should have said this earlier in the week, but i didn't get back from Brussels till silly o'clock on Monday and work has been utter chaos. It doesn't help when my wife woke me up because the earth moved for her!

FOSDEM was great, and for me the coup de gras was meeting so many people from SUSE/Novell and the community. I was finally able to put faces to nicks, and also and speak to so many people about openSUSE/GNOME/KDE and generally just chew the cud (yes I did talk about Bongo too) For me this was one of my main reasons for going, in a modern age things can be detached somewhat and almost sterile due to the lack of real interaction. I met far too many people to mention them all without missing people out, appologies. Suffice it to say Coolo is as grumpy in real life as he is on IRC (having a cold and missing out on birthday goodies may have contributed).

Seriously though, as a member of the community I am really impressed with the whole team's approach to things. They are completely approachable and want to help, they are full of suggestions and advice. There was no hint of a "them" and "us" attitude with regards to employees and community members which makes being a member oi the community so much better as you are made to feel an equal

I met up with Benjamin Weber and Francis Giannaros on Friday night amongst others and consumed many a pint. Poor Pascal Blesser was running around like the preverbial blue arsed fly making sure that everyone was satified, but he made a few minutes to talk; I had a great chat with Zonker about all sorts of topics over a cone of chips and a beer at lunch on Saturday, I spent much of my time at the booth trying to pimp the Geeko and get more people involved (not sure how effective I was but it was fun). The only talks I attended were those in the openSUSE Dev Room, and even then I managed to miss the one talk I really did want to attend due to doing my Lightning Talk. Timo Hoenig tried to help me get my Vaio running rather than strolling under openSUSE; Martin Lasarch helped me with some packaging (I'll mention the details shortly); spoke to the excellent speaker that is Michael Meeks about accessibility; and chatted with JP Rosevear and Michael Wolf about GNOME bits - Michael managed to get eeeSUSE working on the last day. Like I said there were so many people there that I genuinely can't remember everything I did. Sunday was spent in very much the same way, although I attended more talks in the openSAUNA room.

I was invited to dinner with the team at a nice little Moroccan place, JP and the others did invite me earlier but I was under express orders from the wife that my curfew was till 1900 and no more so I had to negotiate - it isn't everyday that you get invited to dinner by openSUSE and certainly not twice in a day

In a nutshell I would like to thank all those that were at FOSDEM. For those that want to join the community or are already part of the community, events like this are brilliant and really help you to see the goodness that is ahead of you.

As I alluded to earlier, FOSDEM enabled me to complete a task I had set myself.

The drivers:webcam repository on the Build Service is now the home for the Ricoh r5u870 driver. This enables you to get openSUSE and the following webcams to work almost seamlessly straight after install as it is one of the repos that can be accessed by selecting YaST > Software > Software Repositories:

HP Pavilion Webcam
Sony Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC2
Sony Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC3
Sony Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC4
Sony Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC5
Sony Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC6
Sony Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC7
Sony Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC8
HP Webcam 1000

As a rough rule of thumb if you have one of the following VAIO models you should be good to go:
AR11, AR21, CR, FE, FZ, SZ, UX

It should also support any HP Pavilion machine with a built-in webcam. As always check the homepage for any changes. There are two packages required to get it working - r5u870 and r5u870-kmp-[flavour]. The dependencies should be sorted so if you select one the other should install, if not please let me know. Many thanks to Martin Lasarch for adding me to the repo.