So, I haven't posted in a while (it's been almost a year), and this seems to be a pattern. I think Facebook has become my "blog" of choice, but to be honest, I really don't like having to sign in via google and/or jump through other hoops to make blog entries. I'll be looking into the software that alienBOB uses for his blog soon, but for the time being, I have an important entry to make. I received a mail from Mikhail Zotov a few days ago, and rather than resummarize what is essentially a summary already, I'm going to post (more of) the entire email (with his permission).

*begin message*

This time, I am bothering you with a request. Grant Coady, a long-time Slacker, an AOLS regular, the author of a few patches for the kernel, the author and maintainer of http://bugs.id.au, and just a nice, intelligent and open-hearted person was taken to a hospital around two weeks ago in a critical condition, which has not improved much since then.

The MRI indicates Grant has severe brain damage. The diagnosis is not fully clear but the docs say the long term prospects for Grant can be very bad. His arms and legs have not moved to this day, he doesn't talk, however his neck is getting stronger, he is moving his head now and focusing his eyes on you, not staring aimlessly past you, and even smiles at jokes.

Grant is 55, doesn't have a family but a brother and sister who live in other places and haven't been found by the police yet. It seems the only friends of Grant are John Sharkey who lives there nearby (Bendigo, AU) and the Net community. John visits Grant in the hospital every day and spends as much time with him as possible.

John has found us via AOLS. He has asked if we, the Slackware community, to which Grant belongs for years, can support Grant with a little gesture of (Linux) friendship by sending him a postcard or some funny Linux stuff, e.g., Tux.

I have made a post on AOLS and wrote to a number of LUGs in Australia (w/o any of them having replied). I would like to ask you to post something on the subject in your blogs, if you find this appropriate.

The postal address of the hospital is as follows:

Attention I.C.U.
Mr. Grant J. Coady
Bendigo Health hospital campus
Lucan Street
(PO Box 126, Bendigo 3552)
Bendigo Vic 3550
Australia

All enquiries (03) 5454 6000

Personally, I have found some cheap Linux toys at

http://www.bytelove.com/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/
http://www.kleargeargeektoys.com/

And, surely, there is store.slackware.com :-)

Best regards,
Mikhail

*end message*

GuruPlug - Part 1

Well, after a successful trial of the SheevaPlug, which is now in use as a firewall (sharing a 3G connection via the onboard ethernet), I purchased a GuruPlug Server Plus back in April. I've just now had time to do much with it, but I'm not terribly impressed overall. Granted, the SheevaPlug was a "developer preview" and thus is expected to be more easily "tweakable" and such, while the GuruPlug seems to be aimed more at end users who just plug it in and use it, but I hadn't expected the GuruPlug to be quite as crippled as it is. That's probably not a fair use of the term "crippled" since it's not intentionally limited by the manufacturer and/or vendor, but it's the only term that comes to mind - basically, it's not easily (if at all) possible to load the kernel from usb or mmc devices, and the uboot (bootloader) shipped on the plug is unable to read ext* partitions at all. I tested some other uboot builds (including one by Philippe Kehl of Debian) and even compiled one myself, but it still wouldn't replicate what I was able to accomplish with the SheevaPlug (load the kernel and initrd from /boot partition on mmc and use / on mmc). Perhaps there was a hefty dose of PEBKAC involved, but eventually, I found it easier and less time-consuming to just put the kernel and initrd on the embedded NAND.

For those who stumble across this blog post, here's the process (but note that this WILL wipe the root filesystem off of /dev/mtd2, so you will no longer be able to boot the OS shipped on the plug). Make the kernel and initrd images and such available via tftp and configure the uboot environment as detailed in INSTALL_KIRKWOOD.TXT and then do something like this:

>> tftp 0x6400000 uImage-kirkwood
>> nand erase 0x100000 0x400000
>> nand write.e 0x6400000 0x100000 0x400000
>> tftp 0x6400000 uinitrd-kirkwood
>> nand erase 0x500000 0x1fb00000
>> nand write.e 0x6400000 0x500000 0x800000

Now, verify that it did what you think it did: :-)

>> nand start
>> nand read.e 0x00800000 0x100000 0x400000
>> nand read.e 0x01100000 0x500000 0x800000
>> iminfo 0x00800000
>> iminfo 0x01100000

Both of those 'iminfo' lines should end with "Verifying Checksum ... OK"

Now you'll want a uboot environment something like this:

>> printenv  
bootdelay=3
baudrate=115200
ethact=egiga0
eth1addr=02:50:43:eb:75:43
ethaddr=00:50:43:01:5D:EA
arcNumber=2659
mainlineLinux=yes
filesize=759688
fileaddr=6400000
ipaddr=192.168.13.50
serverip=192.168.13.11
stdin=serial
stdout=serial
stderr=serial
bootargs_root=root=/dev/sdb2 waitforroot=10 rootfs=ext4
bootargs_console=console=ttyS0,115200
bootcmd_slack=bootm 0x00800000 0x01100000
bootcmd_usb=usb start;
bootcmd=setenv bootargs $(bootargs_console) $(bootargs_root); \
  run bootcmd_usb; run bootcmd_nand; run bootcmd_slack; 
bootcmd_nand=nand start; nand read.e 0x00800000 0x100000 0x400000; \
  nand read.e 0x01100000 0x500000 0x800000

Environment size: 629/131068 bytes

NetworkManager on Slackware

Yes, you read that right. :-)

Since I've got a 10 day old infant (as of 10 June 2010) at home, I've been pulling a lot of sleepless nights lately. I've never been one to waste time, so I found a nice project to work on between feedings and diaper changes, and that was NetworkManager. I'm not quite ready to throw any packages out for public consumption, but I'm close - I think I've got all of the major kinks worked out of it, and the only thing left to do now is some final touchups and resolve some issues in Slackware itself that affect the result.

Stay tuned! :-)

Update (20100622): All of it available on http://slackbuilds.org :-)

Slackware 13.0 Released!

Yep, Slackware 13.0 is out, and finally we have both an x86 (32bit) and x86_64 (64bit) version available.

On a related note, my package repository and SlackBuilds.org have new goodies for 13.0 available.

Enjoy, everyone!

Slackware 01000000

To quote the homepage:

[tap tap tap]... Is this thing on? ;-)

Ready or not, Slackware has now gone 64-bit with an official x86_64 port being maintained in-sync with the regular x86 -current branch. DVDs will be available for purchase from the Slackware store when Slackware 13.0 is released. Many thanks go out to the Slackware team for their help with this branch and a special thank you to Eric Hameleers who did the real heavy lifting re-compiling everything for this architecture, testing, re-testing, and staying in-sync with -current.

We've been developing and testing Slackware64 for quite a while. Most of the team is already using Slackware64 on their personal machines, and things are working well enough that it is time to let the community check our work.

We'd like to thank the unofficial 64 bit projects for taking up the slack for us for so long so that we could take our time getting everything just right. Without those alternatives, we would have been pressured to get things out before they were really ready.

As always -- have fun!

Pat and the Slackware crew

Southeast Linux Fest

It's coming up soon, folks - the Southeast Linux Fest in South Carolina at Clemson University, so mark your calendars and make plans to attend. This is a great opportunity to meet other linux users in the southeastern region of the US, and based on the list of presenters, it should be a very entertaining and educational experience as well.

For you Slackware users, this is an opportunity to meet other users and well as a few members of the Slackware and/or SlackBuilds.org development teams. I, Alan Hicks, David Somero, Chess Griffin, and perhaps several others will be in attendance, and I'll be doing a "Firewalling on Linux" presentation.

Xfce-4.6.0 for Slackware

Xfce 4.6.0 has released, and as expected, it's wonderful.
As usual, I've got a package for the latest stable release of Slackware - it's in the usual place.

University of Glasgow and Slackware

I just noticed a bit on DistroWatch about a major university's Department of Physical Sciences' migrating their main logon server to Slackware... It seems that the University of Glasgow (in the UK) retired the old logon server because it couldn't handle the load any more. They needed a stable, secure, and easy to maintain operating system for the new one, so they chose Slackware for the job. Thanks to Shane Kelly at UG and anyone else involved in the decision!

Slackware 12.2!

The anxiously awaited Slackware 12.2 release is now upon us - here's the blurb on the home page:

**************************************
That's right, it is once again time to announce a new release of Slackware. With a shiny new kernel, many package updates, and the newly added ability to install from a Samba share, we bring to you the latest in the stable Slackware 12.x series. Slackware 12.2 ships with the 2.6.27.7 Linux kernel, the Xorg 1.4.2 X server (with many driver, library, and application updates), Xfce 4.4.3, KDE 3.5.10, simplified wired and wireless networking with wicd in /extra, package upgrade management with slackpkg moved into the main tree, support for non-usb-storage digital cameras through libgphoto2, pm-utils (tools to support suspend and hibernate through HAL), and much, much more. This release brings the system up-to-date without compromising stability or compatibility with the 12.x series.

More details may be found with the official announcement

If you like Slackware, please consider supporting the project by picking up a copy of Slackware 12.2 from the Slackware Store. The discs are off to replication now and pre-orders are being accepted for the official 6 CD or 1 DVD set. Also by popular demand, we now have black T-shirts with the original Slackware logo for sale. Check 'em out!

Thanks are due to the Slackware crew, the developers of slackbuilds.org, the fine folks on linuxquestions.org, IRC, and everyone else who pitched in to help make this another great Slackware release. We couldn't have done it without your help.

As always -- have fun!

Pat and the Slackware crew
**************************************

On a related note, we at SlackBuilds.org have just opened up our 12.2 offering, so enjoy!

Slackware 12.2rc1

Well, it's getting close, folks. After several months of development and testing in the -current tree, Slackware 12.2 is almost here. As a precursor, here are some notable changes compared to 12.1:

1. Addition of pm-utils, a collection of scripts which take advantage of HAL's quirks database to handle power management tasks (like suspend and hibernate). See README.SLACKWARE for details.


2. Addition of wicd, a graphical NetworkManager-like application, to /extra. Wicd doesn't yet support all of NetworkManager's feature set, but for most users, it's plenty adequate.


3. SlackPkg has been added to the main tree (moved from /extra).


4. libgphoto2 has been added.


5. Based on kernel 2.6.27.7 and upgraded udev, gcc, and many other libraries and tools are upgraded and added.

As an aside, there are always many requests for new additions around this time, but quite frankly, release candidate state is too late for most of those, especially if other parts of the system can/will use them if present. Things that are of general purpose use will certainly be considered, but you need to suggest them earlier in the development cycle, and be prepared to discuss the pros and cons of adding them. Sending a well-tested and clean build script, licensed under BSD/MIT or similar, is also strongly suggested... :)

Xfce 4.6

Xfce 4.6 is due to release within the next couple of months, and as everyone knows, I'm a big fan of the Xfce desktop environment. I've been using a subversion checkout for several weeks now, and as expected, it's more of the same - in other words, it's exactly what we've come to expect of the Xfce developers: fast, attractive, and stable.

In case anyone running -current wants to give it a try, I've just pushed some packages to http://xfce46.rlworkman.net along with a few selected "goodies" compiled against it. Be sure to check out the xfce4-power-manager addon; it's a much needed and long awaited addition to Xfce, and was written by a Slackware user too :-)

Random Thoughts

Since I haven't posted anything here in a long time, today seems like a good day to do so...

First of all, there were LOTS of questions regarding the lack of updates to -current in late October and early November, and while Eric and I addressed it on AOLS, I'll do so again here. As is plainly obvious now, the batch of updates that went out after all that time had quite a few big changes - in particular, the move from 2.6.24.x to 2.6.27.x required quite a bit of research and testing. While it might be nice to have a weekly "status update" or some such, the fact of the matter is that doing so would take time away from doing *real* work; ultimately, it seems much better for everyone involved if the ChangeLog shows *results* of work rather than *ideas* of work.

Second, I think the -current tree has mostly stabilized to the point of being safe to build packages against it intended for long-term usage, so I've just released the first batch of my unofficial contributions on my packages page.

Third, for anyone who happens to be in the Tuscaloosa area, a few of us have started a Tuscaloosa Linux Users Group, so have a look at it.

Finally, we have closed the submission form at SlackBuilds.org to give us time to clear out pending and prepare for the release of Slackware 12.2.

São Paulo again

First, I'd like to point out that I have made my presentation material from the SlackShow available at http://rlworkman.net/slackshowbrasil/.

Second, we were graced with the presence of Sulamita Garcia at the conference yesterday, and we took her vehicle to dinner last night. Sulamita is the Latin America Open Source Strategy Manager for Intel, and while I had some previous knowledge of her, I am *very* impressed after meeting and talking with her - the open source community needs more individuals like Sulamita.

Third, I have put a few more pictures from yesterday and last night in http://rlworkman.net/images/brazil/.

São Paulo, Brasil

Greetings from São Paulo, Brazil!

Alan Hicks, Eric Hameleers, and I are in São Paulo (with Piter PUNK and many Brasilian Slackware users for the SlackShow.

We visited the IBM Campinas facility Thursday and listened to some talks there at the Linux Technology Center - thank you to the wonderful people in that division for inviting us!

We gave our presentation on "Working with Slackware" yesterday, Eric gave his presentation on Slackware installation this morning, and as I type this, he is giving his presentation on SCIM (Smart Common Input Methods). Alan will be giving his presentations on TCP/IP networking and 802.11 wireless networking after lunch, and I will follow with my presentation on Netfilter/Iptables usage.

We've taken quite a few pictures - I've put a few of them online for viewing at http://rlworkman.net/images/brazil/.

Slackware 12.1 Released!

Yep, it's official! :-)

From the ChangeLog:
Thu May 1 13:36:34 CDT 2008
Slackware 12.1 is released as -stable. :-) Again, huge thanks to everybody who pitched in and helped with bug reports, patches, testing, suggestions, other comments, and everything else. Without this valuable input, Slackware would be nowhere near what it is today. Special thanks to the CREW, to the people developing and testing for slackbuilds.org (where many of Slackware's future additions are first built and tested), and to everyone on linuxquestions.org, various #slackware or ##slackware IRC channels, other Slackware related web sites, and other places where the community shares their needs and concerns with the team. On behalf of everyone here, thanks.
We think you'll enjoy this new release, and hope that you'll find it to be much more than 0.1 better than Slackware 12.0. ;-)

kde-4.0.70

I pushed out packages of kde 4.0.70 yesterday; this is intended to be the last snapshot before the 4.1.0 alpha1 release (according to the kde team).

The packages (and sources) are at http://kde4.rlworkman.net/; also, be sure to read the _README file for installation/upgrade instructions and known bugs/workarounds.

Slackware 12.1 rc2 released!

It's close, folks... :)

From the ChangeLog:
Mon Apr 21 16:47:32 CDT 2008
We have now reached the Slackware 12.1 RC2 milestone. :-) We're beyond updating packages or fixing minor cosmetic bugs at this point (actually, we had hoped to be past that with RC1, but there were still items in need of attention). What we have here now has proven to be stable for our testers, so unless some real showstoppers are found we'll be releasing this as Slackware 12.1-final soon.

kde-4.0.2 packages

Thanks to a bit of gentle prodding from Benoit Beauchamp over at Recycled Space :) and a bit of spare time, I've finally got kde-4.0.2 packaged for Slackware -current (soon to be 12.1, we think) :)

It's in the same place as before -- http://kde4.rlworkman.net/, and there are new builds of *every* package in the tree, as well as some rearrangement of the source tree.

As I mentioned before, I can't offer rsync or ftp access from the box hosting these package, so http is all I can do... Enjoy! -RW

kde-4.0.1 on Slackware

I just pushed some updates to the kde4 packages for Slackware -current; now we have kde-4.0.1 packs.


The download location has moved though - I decided to take advantage of some previously unused bandwidth and space on my 1and1.com shared hosting account.


Get them at http://kde4.rlworkman.net/.

KDE4!

Two announcements...

First, I've just pushed some long-awaited packages of kde-4.0.0 for Slackware. They are only for Slackware -current (this is the development version of Slackware, not the latest stable release), and no, that doesn't mean that the next release of Slackware will have kde-4.0.0 in it.
See the latest post on my ChangeLog:
http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/current/ChangeLog.txt
(Tue Jan 15 17:06:38 UTC 2008).

Second, I'll be attending the release event at Google this weekend, along with Pat, Alan, and Amrit. Fred (slamd64) is also going to be there, so we plan to have a grand time! :-)