Sunday, August 2. 2009
Moving KMess from subversion to Git Posted by Diederik van der Boor
in KMess, Open Source, PlanetKDE, Technology at
23:23
Comments (2) Trackbacks (383) Moving KMess from subversion to GitToday I've been busy converting the KMess svn repository to git. [for the uninitiated: both svn and git are tools to track changes in the source code of an application. KMess is a MSN Messenger client for KDE ]. The reasons for git are twofold:
Which brings me back to today. Since our repository is also organized like KDE (/trunk/projectname/...) using svn-all-fast-export (made by Thiago) was the natural choice. This tool uses a "rules" file to specify which project a given repository paths should go to. It also offers ways to filter out commits. Turns out that last feature is useful for us too. While the repository may look clean from the outside, it's history has some curlpits. A few times branches were created from the wrong path, deleted again, and recreated with the correct path. These can be filtered out. Installing svn-all-fast-exportThere are no binaries for the the application, so you'll have to run: git clone git://repo.or.cz/svn-all-fast-export.git cd svn-all-fast-export qmake fast-export2.pro make The devel packages for Qt, subversion and apr need to be installed. For openSUSE 11.1 I had to correct the file Using it
First, you'll have to create a rules file. There are plenty of examples in the "examples" folder for this.
The documentation of svn-all-fast-export is absent at the moment - except for a few sample rule files. Fortunately the source code was quite readable, and it's Qt 4 application. Looking at the source, I've learned:
The result of my day includes of a large rules file, and shell scripts to automate everything. I've stored it in our subversion repository in a separate trunk/svn-to-git project, so feel free to look around. I hope these scripts can help you too. One thing.. there is again no documentation.... Read the source Issues left open
There are a few issues I haven't been able to solve yet.
Sunday, April 19. 2009
openSUSE running on a MacBook Posted by Diederik van der Boor
in Less-technical, Life, Open Source, PlanetKDE, Technology at
17:42
Comments (4) Trackbacks (0) openSUSE running on a MacBookLately I got a request to blog more about the progress of KMess, and I've been scratching an itch on it. Since we're about to release a "KMess 2.0 beta 2" release I'll delay that for later today/tomorrow. The train from work to home also started to get a bit boring so I've decided to install openSUSE on my MacBook. I really wanted to do this because KDE 4.2 is looking so sweet. Running OS X didn't feel right anymore at all. The setup was a bit difficult due to EFI-partitioning being messed up, but the actual install was easy. In case you're looking for a HOWTO, the openSUSE wiki pages give you everything you need. Most hardware seams to be working, including: bluetooth, wifi, audio, compositing, video out, special keys, sensors, iSight webcam (requires firmware). There are some quirks remaining though: at the login I briefly see some video memory garbage and the synaptics touchpad sometimes gets locked after suspend to ram. However, now I can have some fun in the train, show pictures to friends easier, potentially expose Linux/KDE4 to more people, read cached e-mail, etc... Perhaps I could code somewhat, but most of my energy is still spent on my daily job and the renovation of my apartment in the evenings/weekends. I'll blog a bit more about that later. Friday, August 3. 2007
KDE-NL BBQ Posted by Diederik van der Boor
in Less-technical, Open Source, PlanetKDE at
00:59
Comments (2) Trackbacks (0) KDE-NL BBQThe responses to by previous blog entry were more then I hoped for. Among them was an invitation to join the KDE-NL BBQ, which was helt last weekend. Whooha! As newcomer, the experience was mindblowing. Everyone has the same passion and because KDE has so much to offer, everyone has something different to tell about too. So there is a lot to talk about: the state of development, Akademy, KDE4, marketing idea's, plans that are going, and all kinds of interesting details. There were developers from Amarok, KOffice, Mailody, the Music Notation Flake (Soc), but also translation, and marketing/promo teams. Everyone was genuinely interested in each others stories, everyone clearly showed respect for each other, and we had some good laughs. If that wasn't cool enough, consider how conversations went full speed. Where you normally have to slow down because you're talking too fast, there was nothing to worry about among KDE enthusiasts. It's said that people keep spending soo much time on KDE because of the community. I definitely believe that's true. I enjoyed every piece of that day, and love to be part of such events more often. I went homeward with Jos Poortvliet and Niels van Mourik. We had a some difficulties finding the the highway because we spent too much time talking. I had some good conversations with Jos back home, and thanks to him I didn't have to make the entire journey back by train. This would have taken more then 2 hours in total, now only 20 minutes. At the train station I had an interesting experience as well. I sat waiting there with my notebook bag and a Baguette left from the BBQ. Which is quite odd at 23:00 to say the least. Some guys joined me to ask if I was from France, where I got that Baguette from. Oh BBQ? where? with friends? Well.. how do you say this.. er.. have you heard about Linux? yes? .. I had a BBQ with guys who work on KDE in The Netherlands.... er.. a set of graphical programs for Linux! Oh Cool! You work on Linux? It was pretty awesome to talk with those guys at a train station about Linux vs Windows vs Mac OS (due to my notebook), and how that guy didn't like Windows but still used it. Not that we could talk in detail - time was short and it mostly went about stereotypes - but every bit helps. I spent the evening talking over MSN till about 2am, and was well awake before the alarm went off too. What a day!
Saturday, January 27. 2007
You know you have a nice download ... Posted by Diederik van der Boor
in KMess, Less-technical, Open Source at
18:49
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) You know you have a nice download page when......someone else copies your layout and wordings. (compare: KMess version) All I can say is: I'm flattered. On a side note, I'm still looking for ways to improve the home page. I really like sites that show off their product well at the home page. The recent examples I found are: Why is this important? With my application conversation I litterally got the question "what is KMess actually?". I never noticed it before; the home page simply didn't tell. It only rambled the news headlines of things that were improved. I'd like to improve the homepage it visually as well, like the sites above managed to. The screenshot tour is a good start, but a bit too hidden yet. Every once in a while I'm thinking how to incorporate new ideas in our home page. Perhaps I manage to get something done with the 1.5 release. Contributions, designs and suggestions are welcome off course. Sunday, December 3. 2006
Debugging KDE applications in Fedora ... Posted by Diederik van der Boor
in KMess, Open Source at
17:39
Comments (0) Trackbacks (259) Debugging KDE applications in Fedora CoreImage speaking to a new developer. With excitement you tell about the debugging features of KMess. We've got a network output window, and lots, really lots of console output. The console is literally flooded with messages when you run the debug-build of KMess. This allows us to trace how KMess interacted with the protocol messages, how it parsed those and sent responses back. Now imagine this new developer doesn't see anything of it. That's an annoying way to become challenged as developer. First you start guessing where the output could be. SuSE has a nice My next stop was KMess uses standard #include <kdebug.h> int main() { kdDebug() << "test output" << endl; return 0; } Again, this simple test application gave no output on STDERR or whatsoever. I seriously started to fear KDE was patched by the developers of Fedora Core. This could mean the developer would never see the output. Stephan Binner has a site of distributor patches, for which I can't thank him enough. Browsing the folders I found a patch on kdelibs/kdebug. Compare the original file with this patch, and notice how Fedora Core hides all output by default! arhg! This not only costs one or two hours of debugging, but it's even more annoying it isn't mentioned anywhere. A simple note would have been enough. The code of the original file acted as a good reference to find a solution. By creating the file [0] InfoOutput=2 ErrorOutput=2 This extends the global configuration in Needless to say, I'll propably disfavour distributor patches even more then I already did (i.e. how a Wine developer wasted his Sunday afternoon on debugging packaging problems, scroll to "another example"). When something needs to be patched, it's likely the upsteam software lacks some option, not an other patch. In the case of KDE this wasn't needed at all, Monday, November 27. 2006
Introducing PhpPlanet: PHP feed ... Posted by Diederik van der Boor
in KMess, Open Source, Technology at
00:35
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Introducing PhpPlanet: PHP feed aggregation softwareOne of the things I really wanted to implement was a "Planet KMess" section at the KMess website. I've been looking for existing solutions, but couldn't find what I was looking for. I don't need expanding sections, or forum/e-mail like "mark as read" capabilities. Just a simple web page with all stories, posted in order. As for why I'm not using Planet: the Planet KDE site is flooded with old feeds now and then. I don't want to see that happening for a "Planet KMess" website. Planet is written in Python and uses a file-based cache. This is a complete black box for me as Python illiterate, and adds Python as new dependency to the web site. The result is a new Planet-like feed reader/aggregator named PhpPlanet. It is v0.1 software and can be downloaded here. It stores feeds in a MySQL database, and uses Snoopy/MagpieRSS to parse the feeds. Flooding is avoided by observing the timestamp of RSS entries. When multiple entries have the same timestamp it's an indication the feed is regenerated, and those entries will be rejected automatically. |
QuicksearchLinksContactingComments can be posted at the bottom of each blog entry. For direct questions, you can also contact me by e-mail. My e-mail address is "vdboor" at "codingdomain.com". Oh and "vdboor" can actually be pronounced as "van der Boor" as it's based on my last name ;) Identi.ca
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