KDE 4.0.71

This is continued from here.
Well, the build from qt-copy progressed, this time faster because I wasn’t reading techbase instructions much. If you remember my first build, it filled up my /home and later unmentioned in my blog, creped in few problems. I was able to run KDE4 applications from KDE3.5.8, KDE4 Desktop using Xephyr and even by running separate instances of X on virtual consoles, but not a full KDE4 session from login manager. It just used to hang.

I wished I could save space by not having KDE3.5.8, just a tiny wish in my mind which accidentally came true when I un-installed gcc4.1 and g++4.1 (since I wanted to use 4.2 ). I used adept, and I didn’t realise that many packages were being removed until I took a glance at the screen to find that it was almost done. That includes kdm, xserver, all kde applications and finally adept itself.
I still wonder if I accidentally touched any other package other than gcc and g++.

Right now, my PC runs minimal KDE4 session, firefox, konversation and yes of course kdegames; well, call it playground/games. I’ve been playing kapman since I could finish building this up.
Oh, this reminds me, another small error I made during kdegames build. I ran svn up without checkout on libkdegames and libkmahjongg. The error came to light when I tried to build kapman. I asked around in #kdegames without trying to debug and passed on the confusion to many there.
I hadn’t build kdegames and how would kapman pick libraries from it then? It struck me when my belly rang a hunger warning. So, it was taken care of after dinner.

Now on KDE 4.0.71, with broken plasma.

Configure SVN - the simplest way

Ok I confess, I was too lazy to update posts here; just broke it.

This is a quick look at using svn at its simplest form.

Install subversion using your favourite package manager.

To create new repository
svnadmin create /path/to/repo

To disable anonymous access and set path for passwd and authz file
Edit /path/to/repo/conf/svnserv.conf

Remove prefix “#” for lines
1. password-db = passwd
2. authz-db = authz
3. anon-access = read
4. realm = My First Repository

Now change `anon-access = read` to `anon-access = none` and `realm = My First Repository` to `realm = yourprojectname`.

To add users and passwords
Edit /path/to/repo/conf/passwd

Add usernames/passwords in this file in the following format
username = password
example: krish = i_forgot_my_password

Save & Exit

To add path specific access control
Edit /path/to/repo/conf/authz

Under section [group], add new group names as follows:
ournewgroup = user1, user2, user3
Please ensure that all users added to groups exists in the conf/passwd file.

Under section [/foo/bar], add access control list to specific paths of your projects like this:
[/foldername/under/repo]
user1 = rw
user2 =
@ournewgroup = r
* =

Now to start our SVN process, run command
svnserve -d

Your SVN is now ready. For svn clients you can use TortoiseSVN on Windows or svn client comes bundled with most linux distributions.

Vi to Emacs transition

GNU Emacs was on my To-Do list since long time; I considered it to be tough and only for geeks.
I never used it except for the Emacs psychiatrist. (I am bad; considering the fact that I’ve been in open source for 3+yrs now, and did not use this editor.)

Today I quickly read through 10% of the Emacs tutorial, and here are my learnings..

Some reference before further reading.
—————————
C - Control key
M - Meta or Alt key
—————————

Learnings:

C-x-c = exit emacs. ( Is this the first thing to learn?)

C-v or Pg-Dn = View next page
Esc-v or M-v or Pg-Up = View previous page
C-l = Center the screen/page to the current line (In C-l, l = lower case L)

—Cursor Control

C-p or uparrowkey= move one line up
C-n or downarrowkey = move one line down
C-b or leftarrowkey = move to previous character
C-f or rightarrowkey = move to next character
M-f = move to the next word
M-b = move to the previous word

C-a or Home = move cursor/point to the beginning of current line
C-e or End = move cursor/point to the end of current line
M-a = move cursor/point to the beginning of current and previous sentences.
M-e = move cursor/point to the end of current and next sentences.

M-< = Beginning of the whole text
M-> = End of the whole text

Hmm.. not bad at all. Infact the cursor control makes more sense than in Vim-editor.
If you are among those who want to try Emacs, I suggest you jump to it rather than hanging it on a To-do list.

May be I’ll move from Vi to Emacs very soon.

Walking through the bazaar

Having minimally used CVS ages ago(2 yrs may be), and with very little traces of `version control systems concept` left in my minimal mind, I sheepishly logged in to my launchpad account.

I had to commit the license file for project timepass into its development repository.

Launchpad uses bazaar as version system for hosted projects.
Bazaar is a distributed revision control system sponsored by Canonical Ltd., designed to make it easier for anyone to contribute to open source software projects.
It is written in the Python, with packages for major Linux distributions, Mac OS X and Windows. It is released under the GNU General Public License and is free software.

CVS and SVN are other famous version control systems. I guess I’ve fallen in love with bazaar for now.

I had to read documentation, how-to’s, before I could push my file to the repository.
I am trying to trace back few steps and give a quick read column on accessing bazaar branches on launchpad.

1. Install bazaar on your operating system. (google on it)
For ubuntu/debian users, bzr package in your repositories.

2. Generate your ssh key.
ssh-keygen -t dsa

3. Introduce yourself to bazaar; ensures you are identified in revision logs.
krish@blackbeauty:~$ bzr whoami “Srikrishna Das <srikrishna.innovations@gmail.com>”

4. Check if bazaar knows you know.
krish@blackbeauty:~$ bzr whoami
Srikrishna Das <srikrishna.innovations@gmail.com>

5. Create directory for local copy, and files required for upload. (In this case, I need to upload license file for project timepass)
krish@blackbeauty:~$ mkdir -p /data/timepass/timepass-devel/license
krish@blackbeauty:~$ touch /data/timepass/timepass-devel/license/tplv1.txt
krish@blackbeauty:~$ cd /data/timepass/timepass-devel/

6. Tell bazaar about your local branch (run the following command in the project directory)
krish@blackbeauty:/data/timepass/timepass-devel$ bzr init

7. Tell bazaar that you want to add your files to the version system
krish@blackbeauty:/data/timepass/timepass-devel$ bzr add
added license
added license/tplv1.txt

8. Commit files to the branch, with revision message (this is still local, not the hosted launchpad branch)
krish@blackbeauty:/data/timepass/timepass-devel$ bzr commit -m “timepass license version1″

Now, its time to send the local branch files to project’s branch on launchpad.
A prerequisite for this is to update your ssh keys with launchpad; go to your launchpad account profile and select action update ssh keys. Follow the instructions there.

9. Publishing your branch with launchpad using
bzr push bzr+ssh://username@bazaar.launchpad.net/projectregistrant/project/projectbranch
krish@blackbeauty:/data/timepass/timepass-devel$ bzr push bzr+ssh://srikrishna@bazaar.launchpad.net/~timepass/timepass/timepass-devel

Congratulations, on committing your first file to bazaar.
For more reading on bazaar, see Bazaar in five minutes or Bazaar user guide.