The Final Zone project

Why gpick is not updated to 0.2.5 in Fedora

2013-05-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

gpick is available in Fedora repository under version 0.2.4. The reason the package does not match upstream is due to a bug related to lua dependency. I submitted a request for bundling exception due to that circumstance. As a packager, it is the first time I stumble into crucial issue.

yum autoremove

2013-04-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

English

Yum has autoremove feature since 2010 but there is a simple command to do so:
yum autoremove
Here is quick example below.

Français

Yum a l'abilit&eacut; d'"autoremove" depuis 2010 mais il existe une commande plus simple sur la version recente 3.4.3:
yum autoremove
Voici un exemple ci-dessous

$ su -c "yum autoremove"
Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit

Resolving Dependencies
-->

Running transaction check
--->

Package gnokii.x86_64 0:0.6.31-4.fc18 will be erased
--->

Package net-snmp.x86_64 1:5.7.2-5.fc18.1 will be erased
-->

Finished Dependency Resolution
-->

Finding unneeded leftover dependencies
--->

Marking lm_sensors-libs to be removed - no longer needed by net-snmp
--->

Marking net-snmp-agent-libs to be removed - no longer needed by net-snmp

Found and removing 2 unneeded dependencies
-->

Running transaction check
--->

Package lm_sensors-libs.x86_64 0:3.3.2-5.fc18 will be erased
--->

Package net-snmp-agent-libs.x86_64 1:5.7.2-5.fc18.1 will be erased
-->

Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================

Package                  Arch        Version               Repository     Size
================================================================================

Removing:
gnokii x86_64 0.6.31-4.fc18 @updates 2.0 M
net-snmp x86_64 1:5.7.2-5.fc18.1 @updates 874 k
Removing for dependencies:
lm_sensors-libs x86_64 3.3.2-5.fc18 @fedora 60 k
net-snmp-agent-libs x86_64 1:5.7.2-5.fc18.1 @updates 2.0 M

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Remove 2 Packages (+2 Dependent packages)
Installed size: 4.9 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y

Downloading Packages:
Running Transaction Check
Running Transaction

Test
Transaction

Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Erasing : 1:net-snmp-5.7.2-5.fc18.1.x86_64 1/4
Erasing : 1:net-snmp-agent-libs-5.7.2-5.fc18.1.x86_64 2/4
Erasing : lm_sensors-libs-3.3.2-5.fc18.x86_64 3/4
Erasing : gnokii-0.6.31-4.fc18.x86_64 4/4
Verifying : 1:net-snmp-agent-libs-5.7.2-5.fc18.1.x86_64 1/4
Verifying : lm_sensors-libs-3.3.2-5.fc18.x86_64 2/4
Verifying : 1:net-snmp-5.7.2-5.fc18.1.x86_64 3/4
Verifying : gnokii-0.6.31-4.fc18.x86_64 4/4

Removed:
gnokii.x86_64 0:0.6.31-4.fc18
net-snmp.x86_64 1:5.7.2-5.fc18.1

Dependency Removed:
lm_sensors-libs.x86_64 0:3.3.2-5.fc18
net-snmp-agent-libs.x86_64 1:5.7.2-5.fc18.1
Complete!

$ yum --version
3.4.3
  Installed: rpm-4.10.3.1-1.fc18.x86_64 at 2013-02-10 20:58
  Built    : Fedora Project at 2013-02-06 09:54
  Committed: Panu Matilainen  at 2013-02-06

  Installed: yum-3.4.3-53.fc18.noarch at 2013-04-06 19:25
  Built    : Fedora Project at 2013-03-25 14:46
  Committed: Zdenek Pavlas  at 2013-03-25

Upgrade to Fedora 19 branch

2013-03-26T21:47:00.001-07:00

My venerable Toshiba Satellite C650D got upgraded from Fedora 18 to Fedora 19 branch using yum because fedup-cli command could not update the kernel with either --instrepo or --skipkernel paramenter. The upgrade also fixed an outstanding issue related to the lagging Nautilus file manager while opening inside Gnome Shell (now version 3.8).

A welcome change on that release is the ability to control notification messages, search and privacy (better late than never). Switching to different keyboard input is much easier with Super+Space (English, French, Japanese). The new user interface for system setting seen on Network, is easier for the eyes in term of readability.

The crash report known as ABRT received a new interface but needed some refinement layout side although it is much better than the previous version found on Fedora 18.

An year and half annoying issue is the inability of Calendar to recognize Thunderbird Lightning. I installed Ligthning extension and still no dice...

Design Suite update

2013-03-14T21:33:00.001-07:00

English

Initial revamping of Design Suite is completed with approval from Design Team. Nightly compose is currently broken but the local built currently resulted an "Oh no!" message. I took over gpick (much needed)for review but no reviewer yet. gimp-seperate+ is underway but the submitter is currently ill. I guess making Design Suite more professional is still a long way...

Reworking design suite livemedia

2013-01-27T23:40:00.000-08:00

After taking maintainer-ship, the challenge is much bigger than expected with outdated information on the wiki and unmaintained ks file for a long time. Worse is the current spin on Fedora 18 has broken login authentication which I did not have a chance to test it.

Learning from these lessons, here is some high goals:

Rewrite the entire wiki of Design Suite.
Select new default packages.
Include fonts used by Fedora Design Team.
Rework the entire ks file using desktop media(Gnome Shell) as a base.
Increase the maximum size of livemedia to 4GB.

Beginning/Commençant 2013

2013-01-10T15:07:00.000-08:00

English

2012 is over, 2013 has begun.

I recently accepted to take over Design Spin from Fedora Project and immediately worked on packaging overhaul for Fedora 19 Release taking advantage of Gnome Shell features like. The goal is to set Design Spin as a nearly professional free and open source suite.
Martin awoke Echo Icon project with some revamped iconset. Task will be challenging but it can be done.

Français

2012 est terminé, 2013 a débuté.

J'ai récemment accepter de saisir Design Spin du Projet Fedora et immédiatement effectué des changements d'empaquetage en prenant avantage du bureau Gnome Shell pour la sortie Fedora 19. L'objectif est d'établir comme une suite infographique professionelle que possible en utilisant les logiciels libres.
Martin a réveillé le projet Echo Icon avec des icones redesinées. La tache sera hardu mais surmontable

iPad 2 on/sur Fedora

2012-10-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

English

It has been a while I wrote on this blog because I am busy running my own design business. Aside that, I recently plug an Apple iPad 2 to import pictures and videos on a Fedora 17 running Gnome Shell 3.4 out of box. It is remarkable what a free and open source software network can do to a device intended to primarily run on iTunes software.

Français

De retour après le manque d’écrit sur ce blog en raison d'affaire professionnel relié à l'infographie. J'ai récemment branché l'iPad 2 d'Apple pour importer les photos et les vidéos sur le système de Fedora 17 roulant sur Gnome Shell 3.4. C'est remarquable qu'un réseau de logiciels libres peut supporter sans problème un dispositif conçu pour l'usage du logiciel iTune.

Drawing hair with Inkscape

2012-06-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

My very first online tutorial is an adaption from Chris Design Drawing Hairs article using both Path and Path Editor tools which requires Inkscape 0.47 or newer. Start-up Inkscape application which should open a new blank page and set the document into landscape.

Create a path

Select the bezier tool or press either Shift+F6 or B on the keyboard.
Draw a line to approximately 800px or more. You can also use rectangle tool (R or F4 as shortcut key) as a thin line illustrated in grey.
While the line is selected, convert into path from the menu Path -> Stroke to Path or press Ctrl+Alt+C on the keyboard. For the rectangle, Path -> Object to Path or Ctrl+Shift+C. The result will show grey diamonds on each corner.

Create a pattern

On the menu, Extensions -> Modify Paths -> Add Nodes. Set the Max Segments Length to 5px.

On the menu Extension -> Modify Paths -> Jitter Nodes. Leave the default settings and apply effects.

You will have about thousands nodes which can be reduced with simplication (Path -> Simplify or Ctrl+L)
Resize the new generated patterns to about 20px width and 200px height, copy one of them with Ctrl+C or Edit -> Copy.

Setting a path effect

Create a new curve using bezier tool mentioned above and select it (bow anr S curve below).

We will use a path effect editor which can be accessed thought either Path -> Path Effect Tools or Shift+Ctrl+7. This editor should appear docked on the right side of Inkscape application.

With either a bow or S curve selected, apply new effect by choosing “Pattern along path” inside the list field and press Add. Pattern along Path should be listed inside Effect List.

Inside Current Effect field, you can either paste your created path or link to path which give finer control of the pattern we created earlier.

Notice the path is horizontally stretched giving a strange result illustrated above. To fix the issue, check "Pattern is vertical" inside Current Effect field.

Now we got a mesh that looks like hairs. To finalize, we applied the same effect on the S curve. If you have linked the pattern, you can adjust its width.

With more practice, you can create a nice hairstyle with a combination of clipping.

Happy drawing and leave feedback about mistake or other stuffs. A big thank you Máirín Duffy (Mizmo) for encouraging me to write this tutorial.

Warning on Fedora 17 installation - Avertissement de l''installation

2012-05-29T11:12:00.000-07:00

English

Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle is recently released. Be warned that some system with Nvidia Geforce 400 series and above might encounter a nasty bug from nouveau driver crashing anaconda, the Fedora installer. Workaround is to use VESA driver for the remaining of installation.

Français

Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle vient de sortir. Sachez que certains syst&egrav;mes équipés des cartes seacute;ries Nvidia Geforce 400 et ultérieurs risquent de rencontrer un bogue sérieux causé par le pilote nouveau plantant l'installeur anaconda. La solution temporaire est d'utiliser le pilote VESA pour le reste d'installation.

Tip for Gnome Shell

2012-04-16T21:59:00.001-07:00

English

Meta-key (Windows or Apple logo key) on Gnome Shell is very useful for this trick:

Point the cursor on an application (for example, a browser)
Hold the Meta-key and press either left or right arrow key set the application windows to either left or right of the half-screen
Wile still holding the Meta-key, press up to maximize the window of application.

Français

La touche Meta (logo Windows ou Apple selon les claviers) est très utile sur Gnome Shell avec cette astuce:

Pointer le curseur sur une application (par exemple, editeur de texte)
Enfoncer la touche Meta et appuyer soit la touche flèche gauche ou droite ce qui placera la fenêtre selon la direction choisi de la moiti&eacut; de l'&eacut;cran.
Toujours en tenant la touche enfoncé, appuyer la flèche haute pour maximiser la fenêtre.

Upgrade to Fedora 17 Beta

2012-04-16T01:05:00.000-07:00

Desktop CPU: AMD Phenom II(tm) X4 Processor 940 AM2+ Memory: 8GB DDR2-RAM GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 v2

Preupgrade failed due to a bug related to anaconda. I downloaded the DVD version of Fedora 17 Beta RC4 and attempt to upgrade the system. It turned out nouveau driver is broken for Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 v2 forcing the use of vesa driver. As a result, Gnome Shell ran on fallback mode until I installed Nvidia driver from rpmfusion repository.

Laptop Toshiba Satellite C650D APU: AMD E-350 with Radeon 6310

Running preupgrade was smooth. The newer kernel seems to resolve a battery consumption issue.

Tips for network scanning issue for HP all-in-one printers

2012-04-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

English

Thanks to two people (VICODAN and tflink) from #fedora-qa helping me resolving the networked scanning issue with HP all-in-one printer, it turned out that hpaio driver name was missing in /etc/sane.d/dll.conf despite the installation on libsane-hpaio package. Once added, scanning applications like simple-scan will automatically detect a network scanner.

French

Grâce à VICODAN et tflink du canal #fedora-qa, j'ai pu résoudre le problème de réseau du numérisation (network scanner) des imprimantes HP type "all-in-one". Il s'est avéré que le pilote hpaio manquait dans le fichier /etc/sane.d/dll malgré l'installation du paquet libsane-hpaio. Une fois ajouté, les applications comme simple-scan pourront automatiquement détecter un numériseur en réseau.

Phantasy Star Online 2 Character Creation on Wine

2012-04-11T01:44:00.001-07:00

Dowloaded Character Creation from Phantasy Star Online 2 (PSO2) (not released yet) and installed via Wine version 1.5.1 from Fedora repository. The test was done on Phenom II X4 940 CPU powered with Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 v2 which replaced the aging Nvidia Geforce 8600 GTS (if a Nouveau driver driver is interested to get that videocard, please contact me. The side effect was a much smoother navigation on Gnome Shell.

With nouveau driver, PSO2 Character Creation is only rendered with a plain blue-grey sphere meaning the free and open source driver still has a way to go.

For the first time in 2012, I installed the nvidia driver from RPM Fusion repository with its quirk. Hopefully, RPM Fusion team will find a way to automatically switch from nouveau to nvidia. Firing PSO character creation through Wine provides this result:

Test was done in window mode at 1280x960. Wine is very impressive with its support to a recent Windows base games which could bring attention to game publisher themselves. Only downside is the sound that cannot be heard.
With some optimization, Linux based operating system could bring attention to gamers. PSO2 can be optimized to run on OpenGL 2.x (there will be Playstation Vita version and also both IOS and Android) and above because it only needs DirectX 9 as minimal requirement. It looks like Linux gaming future is brighter than ever.

Gimp and CMYK

2012-02-07T11:39:00.001-08:00

Reading an post about CMYK support on Gimp is fascinating. For years, GIMP is my image editor of choice in completion of Krita for web publishing, photography and desktop publishing. The CMYK support debate shows how many designers forgot they mostly work screen in RGB and CMYK is mainly for printing. Because of the different process of ink, there is no guarantee the colours from CMYK will be the same on every printers.
Thankfully, majority of printing computer requires RGB file to avoid headache.

Goal for/Objectif pour 2012

2012-02-01T20:48:00.000-08:00

English

January is already over. For 2012, here is the goals I set:

- Improve productivity for design department from identity to magazine.
- Daily icon design inspired from artists like Jakub Steiner and more.
- Sponsor some free and open source project like Blender with its incoming movie codenamed Mango and Gimp for fully switch to GEGL engine. - For business part, fully expand the use of free and open source tools.
- For Fedora Project, work on opened tickets, active participation on Anaconda UI with more refinement, more fonts packaging and active usage of Synfig.

Français

Le mois de janvier est déjà terminé. Pour 2012, voici les objectifs que je me suis établi:

- Amélioration des productivités sur le département infographique de l'identité au magazine.
- Dessin quotidien des icônes graphiques inspirés des artistes comme Jakub Steiner et plus.
- Subvention des projects des logiciels libre comme Blender pour leur film nom de code Mango et Gimp pour la transition complète au moteur GEGL.
- Pour la partie affaire, étendre l'usage des logiciels libres.
- Four le projet Fedora, travaux sur les tickets ouverts, participation active sur l'interface Anaconda, empaquetage des polices et usage active de Synfig.

2011 Bilan as Fedora Designer

2011-12-20T13:47:00.002-08:00

I chose to review my 2011 years now. Although I have played minor role with Design Team, I realized my impact with them was important especially with the porting of Gimp 2.7.x in rpm format because the stable version does not cut it anymore.
I keep a close eye to anaconda redesign learning about planning, meeting and some terminology for user interface face though not the first time since my participation to One Laptop Per Child project.

The lack of blog is due to my focus on my own design business which was very challenging because it was an uncharted territory for me. The beginning was frustration with, for example, the selection of content management system (I ended up with CMS Made Simple) bringing demotivations sometime. I am currently working on a magazine project with a partner only using FOSS tools like Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus. I saw the post about Interaction Designer but chose not to apply due to my priority as part-time self employee. However, I will still contribute to the project which needs more spices in term of elegance.

Un nouvelle sortie de Gimp 2.7.3 est maintenant disponible en format rpm pour seulement Fedora 15 et ultérieur. Cette version a besoin de versions supérieures de babl et gegl qui ne sont malheureusement pas fourni sur Fedora 14 et inférieur. Veuillez lire la note de sortie (traduit sous Google).

Update - Mise à jour

2011-08-18T23:48:00.000-07:00

English
Already three months I have not written on this blog? Sorry about that. Here is what I did on 2011-08-18

Built a new system with a brand new Antec Tower, AMD Phenom II X4 940, Asus M4N78 Pro Motherboard, 4 x 2GB Corsair DDR2-RAM memory and Nvidia Geforce 8600 GTS. Not much a powerhouse but enough for big images and video editing including rendering on Blender 3D (starting to learn modelling).
Took care of local business with almost only FOSS applications.
Practised capoeira session

Français
Déjà trois mois sans écrire sur ce blog? Navré. Voici les activités recentes pour 2011-08-18

Assemblement d'une nouveau système avec une toute nouvelle tour Antec, un processeur AMD Phenom II X4 940, une carte-mère Asus M4N78 Pro, 4 x mémoires 2GB Corsair DDR2-RAM et une carte graphique Nvidia Geforce 8600 GTS.Ce n'est une superpuissance mais suffisant pour les grosses éditions d'images et video et aussi les rendus sous Blender 3D.
Prendre soins des affaires locaux.
Practique d'une session de capoeira.

Gimp 2.7.2: rpm package available / Paquet rpm disponible

2011-05-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

English

Gimp 2.7.2 is now packaged for testing on only Fedora 15. Unfortunately for Fedora 14 users, this application requires higher release of babl and gegl which will come soon.

Français

Gimp 2.7.2 est maintenant disponibible pour évaluation sur Fedora 15 seulement. Malheureusement pour les utilisateurs de Fedora 14, cette application éxige les versions récentes de babl et gegl qui seront lancées bientôt.

Source: http://repos.fedorapeople.org/repos/luya/gimp/

Fedora 15: network issue

2011-05-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

English
I like Fedora 15 beta except for one issue: networkmanager which dhcp does not want to connect at all. Bug is filed. Somehow, Live Media version is not affected.

French
J'adore Fedora 15 beta sauf un problem: NetworkManager duquel dhcp ne veut pas connecter du tout. Le bogue a été soumis en conséquence. Comme quoi, ce problème n'existe pas sous la version Live Media.

Personal note - note personel

2011-03-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

English

It has a while I have not written on this blog. Lately, I first had to deal with personal issue. Now catching up what I missed so far.

Français

Navré du manque d'activités au projet. J'étais en plein milieu de problèmes personnels que je devais resoudre. Maintenant rattrapons ceux que j'ai manqué.