Ronnie Tucker

Updated my Kubuntu 8.04 (with KDE 4.0.3) to KDE 4.1 beta and it is niiiiice!

Got itchy fingers and decided to try Kubuntu Hardy with KDE 4.1 on the EEE to see how good/bad it’d be.

Suffice to say, it is much goodness!

KDE 4.1 beta 1 is now in the Ubuntu repositories for testing. Check Kubuntu.org for full instructions. All you need to do is add a repo, refresh, and you’ll be able to update your KDE 4.0.x to KDE 4.1 beta 1.

Here’s my (KDE 4.1 beta 1) desktop at the moment:

Some things I’ve noticed so far:

• The taskbar can now be semi-transparent (see screenshot above)
• The width, and alignment, of the taskbar can now be altered (by using the little button on the extreme right of the taskbar).
• Comes with desktop themes which skin the taskbar, widgets and widget frames etc.
• PostIt widget can have auto-resized text.
• Couple of new widgets (Folder View, Konq Applet, Kate applet, Lunar, etc)
• Menu Editor
• Widgets can now be locked in place.
• Folders/files now have a +/- icon over their icon to select multiple items without the Ctrl/Shift keys.
• Slight change in graphics here and there.
• Easily switch to classic menu style
• Some new Window effects like wobbly windows, ipod style cover flip, vista style flip.

… and sooooo much more.

Only been using it for a few hours but it seems pretty stable and it was extremely easy to upgrade from 4.0.3 to 4.1b1.

KDE4 rocks!

Having installed Kubuntu Hardy I dreaded the thought of having to recompile the libgpod library to get my iPod Classic (Black) working again. After installing Amarok I thought I’d try my iPod anyway.

Lo and behold, it worked!

Hoorah!

Well, it did. Until I actually flipped through the cover art and played some tracks did I notice that my cover art had gone awry. Drat!

After some tinkering I noticed in my Adept (package manager) that installed was libgpod3-nogtk, when I looked at the description for the library I noticed:

This version does not include artwork support

So I uninstalled it and installed the libgpod3 library.

All good!

Cover art is back (be sure to click the ipod icon at the top of Amarok, and choose Update Artwork). All is good between Amarok and iPods.

Above: the two libraries (and descriptions) in Adept

I toyed with upgrading my Kubuntu Gutsy (7.10) to Hardy (8.04) but came to the conclusion that a fresh install would do me the world of good. My Gutsy had KDE4 bolted on to it with some KDE4 apps and various other junk installed so, yeah, time to start afresh.

This is my current desktop:

(click image for larger version)

It’s a marriage between KDE4 and Compiz Fusion overseen by the Rev. Hardy Heron.

I did try KDE4’s built in desktop effects but they were just too unreliable and slow, but Compiz Fusion is still (as ever) lightning fast. Add to that the Emerald window decorator and it’s looooooovely.

I haven’t actually programmed my own personal Terminator robot (as yet) in MINDSTORMS but I did hit a potential flaw in my plans.

LDD

LDD is LEGO Digital Designer. This is the Windows only application that many creators use to virtually create their model so that it can be uploaded to the LEGO web site. This application also allows you to see how the virtual model was built. So rather than designers taking a gajillion photographs of their model, as it’s being built, they just give out the LDD (or LXF) file which tells all.

But that’s no good to me running Linux!

Ah, not so. For LEGO Digital Designer runs perfectly on Linux using WINE. Behold:

LDD showing the Unibot2 robot.

So now I can easily download other peoples creations, view them from any angle then have the app tell me how to build it!

Look out world, here I come!  ;P

Way back when I were a lad, the cool toy to have was LEGO MINDSTORMS (the robot building kit made by LEGO). But at about £200 it was a bit out of my price range. As I got older and had the money to buy it there was a new version due out, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT but it was also £200-ish. I assumed that the older version would come down in price as the new version came out. Wrong! It’s so highly prized that the older version is still about £200 to buy!

Now, many years later, I have the chance to play with LEGO MINDSTORMS. I spotted a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT on eBay for only £130 and snapped it up with all due haste! Even eBay has very few MINDSTORM kits on it.

Several days later I took delivery of said prize and, wow, does it look cool!

They certainly give you enough bits!

Everything you see in the photo above comes in one biiiiig box! The only problem is that the LEGO software (to program the ‘brick’, bottom right) only runs on Windows and Mac. But, thankfully: Linux hackers to the rescue! One fellow (John Hansen) developed his own language and compiler to program the ‘brick’ in Linux so, in appreciation, I have bought his book: Lego Mindstorms NXT Power Programming: Robotics in C

I’ve only had the kit a few days so I’ve not built anything as yet, but the book has a few examples in it so I’ll be building them first methinks.

Look out world, the Terminator storyline may still happen! 

Ok so I can’t write to it but at least I can now view my Google Calendar in Thunderbird.

I installed Thunderbird2 from the Gutsy repo and that’s fine. But you try installing the Lightning 0.7 add-on. Won’t go. Apparently it’s because they are compiled by different sources. So I’ve had to make do with Lightning 0.5 (also from the Gutsy repo) which means I can’t use the ‘Provider’ plug-in to write to Google Calendar (it needs 0.7) but, hey, I’m happy with what I’ve got.

This post is rather unique in that it is being written using SeaMonkey and within Puppy Linux. PupEEE to be exact, a customised version of Puppy 3 for the ASUS EEE.

The one problem with most distro’s on the EEE is getting the Wifi working, pupEEE made it dead easy. Opened the Network Wizard and it automaically recognised my ath0 as being wireless, next step was to configure it with my WEP key, test it and done! Hence why I can write this post!

I’ve tested it with MP3 and XVID files and both worked flawlessly in the XINE player that is installed by default.

As ever with Puppy, it is blazingly fast, according to the memory status on the taskbar I have 243mb free from my initial 256mb RAM. In his case, pupEEE is initially loaded via USB stick but pretty much everything is in memory ready to rock so clicking any app makes it load almost instantly.

I’m very impressed with it and seriously thinking of ditching my eeeXubuntu install for this pupEEE.

UPDATE: eeeXubuntu now gone in favour of the stupidly fast pupEEE…

After posting my ‘KDE4 is dying’ sob story on the Kubuntu mailing list, I was advised to rename my hidden .kde4 directory then try logging in with KDE4. But just after reading the above solution I saw that KDE 4.0.1 would be released soon.

Sure enough, KDE 4.0.1 was released yesterday (Wed, 6th Feb) and I installed the updates, renamed my .kde4 folder and gave it a whirl…

Whoopee!

Ok, so I’ve only been using it for a few hours but already it seems much faster and polished. There’s now a separate resize icon and the border for the plasma widgets is now pale rather than dark, although I personally preferred the darker faded box but, what the hell, I can live with it. I’m not sure if it’s just me having not seen it for about a week but the K button appears smaller (to me anyway). The little ‘add a widget icon thingy’ at the top right of the screen is more faded now and the menu items swing in diagonally. I’m sure it may be handy later on but said icon thingy seems pretty useless at the moment I can add widgets by right clicking on the desktop.

One thing I noticed right away that they’ve fixed is the widget border thing, apart from now being pale, it doesn’t linger after you’ve moved off the icon, like it used to.

And Dolphin seems a bit faster too but, again, that might be just me…

Anyway, welcome back old friend… I did kinda miss you…

*sob*

I’m have no luck at all this week end.

First was my KDE4 debacle and now an argument with Google Calendar!

I read a nice tutorial which was about getting Google Calendar working in Thunderbird.

‘That’d be handy’, says I.

Downloads the Lightning add-on for Thunderbird, which gives it a built in calendar, then downloaded the Provider add-on which allows Lightning to read and write to a Google calendar.

Installed Lightning first then Provider. Fine. Now to configure Provider. Gives it the Private XML URL and a calendar name and so on, click ‘Next’…

Nothing.

That’s odd.

*scratches head*

After a bit of detective work it seems that there’s a conflict between Lightning and Thunderbird due to Thunderbird having installed from the Gutsy repo’s and Lightning having come from the Mozilla site. Ah crap!

Time for Plan B: get Lightning from the Gutsy repo too!

Ah HA! See? I’m a smart cookie me…

Not so. The Lightning in the repo’s is v0.5. The Provider add-on needs v0.7 (the one on the Mozilla site).

Crap, crap and thrice CRAP.

I give up. No more Linux h4×0r1ng this weekend, screw it…