Planet Unity

changes @ Unity Linux

dillj — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:31:00 +0000

Well, in case you haven't noticed the admins at Unity Linux have been very busy lately. The forum got a new theme and it switched over to MyBB, then our svn and issue tracker have merged. Also, we have a new Wiki. Now it's to get all these sites populated with content and get the community interacting.

The new forum engine and theme

The Unity Forums now using the MyBB forum engine after having lived with SMF for a year. At first I was put off by the default theme, but after that got changed, it's been great experience just browsing around the forum. It just flows.

Merged issue tracker and web svn

First of all a thanks to TobiG at Yoper for agreeing to host our svn and providing the 100 GB server space. Now with the help of redmine we are able to improve our bugtracking and our web svn by managing it with the same software. That makes it easier to assign tasks and post bug notifications on broken software, then examining the solution. Due to all the space, our branches, so far TInyMe and Synergy, are able to use our redmine install for their own bug reporting. In case of an upstream fix, it will be easier to move it to the Unity bug list.

Our new Wiki engine

Now onto my favorite subject, the Unity Wiki (duh, kinda obvious for a docs guy). Using the MediaWiki we hope to provide a better experience when using the wiki as a reference on various topics. Out goal is to unify the Wiki with our Manuals, providing the extra information that does not fit into the Manuals. But until that is fully completed, a lot of work has to be done. If you feel the urge to help out hang out on our IRC channel or give a shout on the Unity forums.

Until then, happy trails.

Just kickin’ off the blog rust.

Unity Linux Developer Blog — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:24:14 +0000

What to write/right. I have been trying to get back around to posting a blog every once in awhile. It’s hard because I have so much going on in regards to the distro and trying to get it to pick up traction. We are really starting to make good progress on what I would consider [...]

problems with the Intel Pro 3945ABG wifi interface (out of date?)

dillj — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:23:00 +0000

this is one post that I keep taking from blog to blog...

Disclaimer
somehow this is the only fix I found for this problem, yet because I don't have a computer with this wireless driver, I have no idea if this is still an actual problem or not.
End of disclaimer

so, after installing openSUSE 11 on a laptop, I ran into some wifi problems.
after doing some heavy googling, I came to learn of the following commands.

my first use of
Code:
dmesg | grep iwl

gave me the following

iwl3945: WARNING: Requesting MAC access during RFKILL wakes up NIC
iwl3945: MAC is in deep sleep!

I solved this by booting into windows (yes, the problems is because of windows) and disabling the wireless interface there.
however, this did not solve all the problems.
dmesg | grep iwl

now gave I got the following output:

iwl3945: Can’t stop Rx DMA

this was solved by removing the kernel module and reloading it with hardware scanning disabled.
rmmod -f iwl3945
modprobe iwl3945 disable_hw_scan=1

and then it worked.

well, I hope that this was of some use and that you can get your wireless working.

If this has been fixed in one of the newer releases of openSUSE, please do let me know!

Unity Linux 2010 RC1 Released!

mdawkins — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:18:16 +0000

The Unity Linux project is pleased to announce its first candidate for release, 2010 RC1. We have taken the last nine weeks to provide many needed fixes and continual updates to the core offering of our software. Check the Downloads page to get the 32 bit and 64 bit LiveCDs.

Changelog:

Updated xorg to 1.7.5
New kernel version 2.6.31.12. Due to several regressions with the current 2.6.32 kernels, it was decided to stay with the 2.6.31.12 kernel for this release with the 2.6.33 to be released in the repo once the first update is released (2.6.33.1).
Filetriggers and other minor bugs were fixed for rpm5.
Smart 1.3 and the addition of smart-utils for mirror automation. The mirror selection is now automated based on system localization for optimum performance. David of Unity-linux is now a contributor to the Smart development team in order to ensure the best user experience.

We have made a large effort to find additional mirrors around the world for hosting our repository and LiveCD ISOs. In the process of finding mirrors, we have adopted the MirMon project for monitoring the status of our mirrors. Users can now go the Mirror Status page to find the best download location as well as the health of the various mirrors.

The repositories now contain many full fledged up to date Desktop Environments which can be installed with the use of the “task” meta-packages. Recent additions include:

KDE 4.4.1 from Synergy Linux,
Gnome 2.28.1,
Openbox 3.4.11 from TinyMe,
XFCE 4.6.1 from Qua It & SAM,
E17 0.16.999.063 from UnitE17

Our resources are now focused on cleaning up of our documentation and the continued bug squashing in preparation for the final release.

Known issues:

The kernel 2.6.31.12 breaks support for the wireless controller Atheros AR2413 (ath5k module). Using an older kernel in the repository fixes that issue. A resolution to this currently being worked on.
The smart-setup tool menu entry has not been designed and implemented. The initial setup is automatic, therefore, running this tool isn’t required unless the user wishes to specify a particular mirror.
The ATI proprietary driver does not support xorg-1.7. It has been removed from the repository to prevent unnecessary problems for users.
VMWare users may experience a several minute start-up delay due to an error with udev.

About Unity Linux:
Mandriva-based Unity Linux utilizes the MkLiveCD project, which allows developers to create their own distribution on top of a Unity Linux core (or “trunk”). Unity Linux thus strives to provide a solid, well maintained foundation that developers can use as a starting point to build their own “remastered” distributions, or as we like to call them, “branches.” Currently, Unity Linux offers both 32-bit and 64-bit LiveCDs. Over 7,700 packages are available after installation. In an effort to give distribution developers maximum flexibility, the core is kept small and usable, but not too basic. Unity Linux provides developers with the bare minimum– just enough to make use of remaster tools, the smart package manager, a 2.6.31.12 kernel, and rpm5. To facilitate easy access to packages, Unity Linux utilizes an SVN repository for packages and internal projects. All the necessary tools as well as a basic tutorial for building packages are already provided. An automatic build system to work with the SVN repository is in progress along with many other tools to make Unity the most functional project to start a personal or professional branch.

A Quiet release

Jmiahman's Stuff » Unity Linux — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:41:27 +0000

KDE 4.4.1 Was released yesterday so quietly I almost missed it. Right now I’m building the base packages for 4.4.1. There’s nothing ground breaking about it. Just some fixes to kmail might be noticeable if you’re a kmail user. There might have also been a few stability improvements too a few favorite plasmoids. Other then [...]

Altruism and volunteering, stepping down but not away

Spiral of Hope » Unity Linux — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:18:38 +0000

Some people can plan long-term. Some people can make a daily to do list. I can do this too, but only for everyday things. When it comes to volunteering my time, or working on my own projects, I work in cycles. Inspiration suddenly and unexpectedly comes, I work very hard on something, and then my inspiration [...]

Unity Linux.. What’s going down?

Jmiahman's Stuff » Unity Linux — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:54:17 +0000

Wow! It’s been a crazy month so far. Stepping back and looking at the waters surface I’m sure to the Linux community the waters of Unity Linux look calm, but underneath the surface has been a fast current, a current of change and progress. Some pretty important stuff has gone down this month. KDE 4.4 Progress We [...]

New development tool produces better results

admin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:17:06 +0000

The development team at Unity Linux has implemented a new tool for checking dependency errors of their packages. This tool can be run both manually and automatically as part of our synchronization with the main repo . Once analysis is complete, the generated reports are automatically emailed to our Quality Assurance team which can then address the issues. The public nature of these reports puts a spot light on any packaging problems that may exist which guarantees quick resolution of any problems. What does all of this mean to our end users? Simply put, this ensures a clean environment where every package is installable!

sup console email client

Spiral of Hope » Unity Linux — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:58:08 +0000

Tested 2010-02-17 on Unity Linux 64bit-beta2, updated 2010-02-15. Installation I needed to install Gems. wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz tar xvvzf rubygems-1.3.5.tgz cd rubygems-1.3.5 su ruby setup.rb # Wait a long time for it to complete gem install rubygems-update update_rubygems Installing sup: smart install gcc-c++ lib64uuid-devel ruby-devel lib64ncurses-devel lib64ncursesw-devel # I think maybe a fresh user would need to install rake. gem install rake sup importing Claws Mail’s [...]

New mirrors

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:22:30 +0000

Two new USA mirrors have been added:

University of Idaho

http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/unity
ftp://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/unity
rsync://mirror.its.uidaho.edu::unity

Virginia Tech

http://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/unity/

This brings our list of mirrors to thirteen. Thank you so much!

You can view our complete list of servers on our wiki: http://wiki.unity-linux.org/mirrors

A number of other institutions have been contacted, and we’re awaiting their reply. If you know of any others who may be interested, please let us know on our mailing list (ul-developers at googlegroups.com), via a comment to this blog or by any other means.