PIDA: An IDE which loves you!

I discovered PIDA while reading around Fedora mailing lists (forgot which thread), and decided to try it out. yum'ed it from the Fedora repository, and launched it.

My first impression - Coool!.. its gvim + version control + shell/terminal + customizable IDE, all in one!.

I usually do development with very basic tools - gvim and a bunch of shells/terminals. I don't like most IDE because of the over-complexity of them. I do use geany or gedit once in a while when I want to have a bit of non-vim'ish behaviour of text editor. But PIDA, its a whole different level. It looks very promising to be my next best-friend.

Not so long after, that I started using it for continuing my current project with Inigo, and quickly, it took over my daily use of gnome-terminal, and my frequent need to change directories and restart Zope. The basic version control feature it have is wonderful. Unlike Eclipse or other IDEs where it is quite hard to get flexibility on how the project is laid out because of the "smartness" of the IDE, PIDA's basic, "stupid", yet useful, version control integration JustWorks.

So far, I have fell in love with this IDE. I haven't tried its other features yet, but I'm quite sure its going to be fun. Its written in Python, so it should be easily extendable. Going to use this a bit more longer and see how my comfort with it - its already replaced my habit of using gnome-terminal at this point of time.

Some screenies:

Keep Fedora "less-moving" using yum-security plugin

Fedora updates repository moves very fast. A few months after the release of F8, hundreds of MBs of packages have been updated. Some people, especially those who came from the less-moving world of Debian and Ubuntu, might found this ridiculous. They are used to receiving only important updates during the stable lifecycle of a release and are not used to Fedora ways of going-forward and adding new enhancement and features to the stable release.

Sometimes, from that many updates, regression problem happened, which is fun to some, but annoying to the others. (I know someone who kept complaining about that - /me glares at a certain person @ #myoss )

I personally does not keep my stable Fedora installations up-to-date to the latest updates, and I hand-pick those packages which I think might have fixed some bugs which I'm encountering. Yes, some people find that tedious :).

For those weak-hearted who are not used to Fedora update release speed, you can opt to only update for security fixes using the yum-security plugin. For the other packages, "If its not broken, why update?". I have known this plugin exist since F7, but didn't really bother to try it, but yesterday I tried it and its awesome!. Yum-security plugin will automatically filter the updates to only security related updates for you.

Using it to update your system is easy, just 'yum install yum-security' and update using 'yum --security update'. More tricks in this Red Hat Magazine post.

This way, you can keep your Fedora installation with less moving parts for your production desktop/server use while keeping it secure.

Btw, looking @ yum-security code, and the updateinfo.xml.gz, it looks to me like its possible to also create a yum plugin to only pull packages which are bugfixes for reported bugs. Is such plugin already exist? I'm planning to look into the possibility, but I don't want to do a duplicate effort - furthermore, I am still not that confident with my ability to work with existing codes. IMO, this can be a good approach or airbag for users who are having trouble of too many updates from Fedora which randomly breaks their system. Users who only want bugfixes and security updates can reduce their updates through this type of filter, and (hopefully) reduce their risk of facing regression of enhancement updates. On the same time, new enhancements can still be continually added into the stable Fedora updates.

edit: fixed RH Mag link

Whats New , and Whats Old - A little comparison between Ubuntu 7.10 new features with the upcoming Fedora 8 and older Fedora releases

Ubuntu 7.10 'Gutsy Gibbon' was just released a few days ago, and Fedora 8 just hit devel-freeze yesterday. With all the hype going all over the internet, one point annoys me - when some Ubuntu users claiming that some of the new features in Ubuntu are something Fedora does not have. Now, lets bust this myth. (This list might not be complete)

Ubuntu 7.10 feature list was taken from : http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/710tour

GNOME 2.20

Both Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 uses GNOME 2.20.

Compiz Fusion

Both Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 have Compiz 0.6.0 during its release. However, in Fedora 8, compiz will not be enabled by default , as there are several issues which still need to be fixed in Fedora's point of view, one of it is the Xv video support - patches are being developed by Red Hat developers in fixing the the X server and Xv and apply it upstream. Compiz is enabled by default in Ubuntu - with a hack patch applied in mplayer to allow Xv rendered properly on Mplayer only.

In Ubuntu 7.10, Compiz-Fusion plugins are included in the installation CD and enabled by default . As for Fedora 8, the Compiz-Fusion plugins can be yum'ed from the repositories.

yum install compiz-fusion compiz-fusion-extras

CCSM is currently under review, it might not reach Fedora 8 during the release because Fedora 8 already hit its devel freeze. Anyway, it will available as an update. (Maybe I can try poking Jesse to make an exemption for this)

Desktop Search

Desktop search was enabled by default during Fedora Core 5 (yes, FIVE!), but due to complains about it eating too much resource , it was made optional on later releases. Desktop search can be yum'ed from the repos to those who want it.

yum install deskbar-applet tracker-search-tool

Fast User Switch

One of the new features of Ubuntu 7.10 is FUS. This feature was developed under Fedora Project and was integrated together during the release of Fedora 7.

See: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Desktop/FastUserSwitching

Firefox Plugin

The firefox plugin finder is from upstream, therefore, all distros using it get the feature

Ubuntu 7.10 repositories now have Firefox add-ons packaged in DEB. This feature is a creditable new feature. There was a discussion about this not so long ago in Fedora-Devel-List ( https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-October/msg01097.html ). Concerns were raised about low-quality and vulnerable add-ons might be hitting the repository if the package submission are not properly managed. Maybe we will be seeing this in Fedora after a guideline for the XPIs is available.

Dynamic Screen Configuration

XRanR have been included together in Fedora 7. Ubuntu 7.10 just included it.

Graphical Configuration for X and BulletProofX

Now now now ... this is REALLY OLD .. Fedora have a similar configurator called System-Config-Display and that tool have been around in Fedora ever since I started using it .. and that was .. Fedora Core 3 (read, THREE) and it might have existed older than that. System-Config-Display supports Xinerama (Multi Display) as long as that too.

Same goes for BulletProofX (but in a different form). When a X session was misconfigured , system-config-display will automatically reset Xorg.conf to the lowest settings of which Xorg can start. This feature have been around as long as system-config-display.

One thing nice in Ubuntu's BulletProofX is the display configurator actually display itself to allow manual adjustments. In Fedora, it'll simply reconfig automatically - and sometimes this doesnt work and causes a failure loop. I had to run system-config-display manually to fix the settings when that happens. I have asked for this 'feature' before, but Fedora believes the fallback should be done automatically without user interaction, and running system-config-display to allow manual reconfigure is considered a hack because it does not fix the actual problem. Any issues about fallback not functioning properly are supposed to be reported at bugzilla.

Printer Support

Ubuntu 7.10 includes a modified Fedora's System-Config-Printer. (thats all I could say, as I dont use printer much).

NTFS Writing using NTFS-3G

Ubuntu 7.10 includes NTFS-3G for accessing NTFS partitions. NTFS-3G have been enabled by default in Fedora since Fedora 7 LiveCDs. Fedora Core 6 added this support through update.

Power Consumption

Ubuntu 7.10 inludes kernel 2.23 which includes tickless kernel support. Fedora 8 also includes kernel 2.23. Fedora 7 might be having kernel 2.23 from updates soon.

Encrypted Harddisk

Alternate installer for Ubuntu 7.10 includes install-time encrypted hdd creation support.

I dont see this in Fedora's Anaconda installer, but a little googling for "encrypted hdd fedora" pointed me to
Fedora Core 5 release note which then pointed me to LUKS. Maybe theres an easy way to encrypt HDD post-installation in Fedora, but I dont know that for now. While I dont see theres a need for encrypted HDD support for / as those installed in / are basically stuff from RPM which everyone have access to on the net, and good admins will separate the system and the data and encrypt the data partition, maybe some people really need it.

Security Framework

Ubuntu 7.10 just included AppArmor by Novell in their release. A similar tool is available in Fedora since long ago called SELinux. SELinux was developed by NSA and has more strict control and security, but however, it was tauted hard to configure. That has changed in Fedora 7 with lots of GUI configuration tools were introduced for ease of maintaining SELinux.

The rest?

well, I have no idea what "Additional installation profiles for Ubuntu Server" , "Profile-based Authentication Configuration", and "Improved thin-client support" supposed to mean in the Tour page, so I couldn't compare them.


What Fedora 8 Will Have, Sooner Than Other Distros

The full feature list available here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/FeatureList

- NetworkManager 0.7.0 is under heavy development and is included in Fedora 8.
- Online-Desktop - Internet and Desktop - Working together! - Online Desktop developer interview
- IcedTea - IcedTea are the fully Free components of Sun's OpenJDK
- PulseAudio - PulseAudio is a powerful sound server system which supports advanced mixing capabilities.
- Eclipse 3.3 - Fedora Eclipse IDE.
- Animated Wallpaper - Animated wallpaper for your Desktop - Fedora Artwork interview (details in one of the paragraphs)
- Enhanced Bluetooth Improvements - Bluetooth Improvements developer interview

Fedora: Infinity | Freedom | Voice.

Review: A few days with Fedora 8 Test 2

I just upgraded my laptop to F8T2 several days ago. Heres some of my experience of the journey.

Like Moonshine (F7), Fedora 8 Test 2 releases several ISOs to choose from. The classical DVD installer, a Desktop LiveCD, a KDE LiveCD, plus 2 additional new images -> Fedora Electronics Lab LiveCD - targeted for Electical Electronic geeks, and Fedora Developer LiveCD. As I already mirrored Rawhide repository in my local server, I used the Desktop LiveCD for installation. Note that I prefer clean reinstallation rather than upgrade, plus the LiveCDs doesnt offer upgrade option so far.

Installation

Installation was a breeze as usual , just that I forgot to set /boot mountpoint during installation that causes anaconda to crash -> my sda1 is an NTFS partition which i keep a winXP installation just in case i need it, and all other partitions are on LVM besides /boot - this might have what caused the crash. I have my /home on a different partition, just to be safe, I didnt set the mountpoint during the installation. After installation, I edited /etc/fstab to automount my home folder.

First boot

New looks at GRUB!, new looks at RHGB!, F7 look @ GDM (huh?). The bootup feels a lil bit faster than before, but it might just be me who felt that. Logging in to my user caused the usual missing applet errors due to they havent been installed. Everything else looked fine.

Playing around

After using for a while, I noticed stability problem all over, nautilus keep crashing , firefox halts lots of time. The weird thing is, when i tried using a new user, everything seems okay. So I thought it might be a GNOME config problem and I cleared most of my GNOME settings and stability becomes better. However, firefox still halt frequently on my user. A little more investigation shows that SCIM-Anthy might have been the cause, so I stopped using it for a while and I got my firefox back. I have other stability issues with other apps too, but they all went away after a yum update.

YUM got yummier

YUM speed improved a lot. The depsolving is noticably faster than before. Pirut doesnt frequently hang like before. Joy!. I also noticed theres a plugin in YUM that will keep retrying if yum.pid is locked by another app. This is somewhat convenient as I no longer need to manually rety.

Default Appearance

The GTK Nodoka theme design looks good, however it looks fugly in light blue!. GNOME 2.20 now uses a centralized appearance manager, which is cool. From there, I discovered that Nodoka colors can be changed easily through the UI. Double Nice!. A little darkening of the window color, switched the light blue color to dark grey, and Nodoka became pleasing to my eyes ^-^.



PulseAudio

At first pulseaudio pissed me off, why?, coz I didnt hear a thing if I set gstreamer to use pulseaudio. But after a little investigation, I discovered the daemon was not started (duh~). Executed pulseaudio in the command line, and it seems to work. I played around more by yumming for available pulseaudio tools from the repo, and they impressed me. I'm now able to have more controls over volumes in of applications, like right/left channels, and different volume for different apps. There might be more feature I dont know yet, but so far PulseAudio rocks!.



Compiz

Fedora 8 Test 2 have compiz 0.5.2 included. For some reason compiz doesnt work on the LiveCD, but after installation, it worked with some problems - certain plugins like "move", "resize" were not loaded - gladly it was fixed after a yum update. Compiz Fusion are also in the Rawhide repositories now, (they are not my packages, but Dragoran/Adel Gadlah's). However, libcompizconfig, compizconfig-python, and ccsm are not there yet. Therefore, the compiz from F8T2 uses glib gconf instead of libcompizconfig. A little rpmbuild from my src rpms, and a little editing at /usr/bin/gnome-wm , my compiz is back like it was before.

Due to I'm quite bz with school stuff, I havent updated my packages for quite a while, Leigh@Linux from the fedoraforum looks like have taken over my work, thanx and goodluck Leigh ^-^ .
Compiz fusion thread in fedoraforum

Conclusion

F8T2 might be quite unstable at first, but it getting better as time goes. I'm looking forward for the official release of Fedora 8.

Now , I better get back to my assignments and coursework projects. Until next time.

Compiz Fusion is here

The merge of compiz and beryl have already created an offspring

Introducing Compiz Fusion
http://youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w

If you want to try it out, follow this guide to compile it on your system
http://forums.opencompositing.org/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=758

For Ubuntu users, checkout Trevino's repository http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org/dists/feisty/eyecandy/

For Fedorans, theres no Fedora packages for Fusion for now .. So, follow the from-source guide above. However, fear not , I am putting up together the pieces into a YUM repository. Currently I'm in the process of building them properly in Mock and making sure no Errors appear on rpmlint. I will announce it when I have satisfied with the packages.

GPG Encrypt/Sign Texts in Firefox using FireGPG

Carthik Sharma pointed out a new Firefox extension called FireGPG in his blog post.

Just what I'm looking for! :D

Site URL: http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org/

FireGPG is a Firefox extension which brings an interface to crypt, decrypt, sign or verify the signature of a text in any web page, using GnuPG.

It will support some webmails. Right now, only GMail is supported, some useful buttons are added in the interface of this webmail !

FireGPG can sign/ecrypt basically anything in a HTML textarea and can verify anything on screen. However, during my test, if urls in the email was converted to hyperlink (thus, changed from original message), it couldnt verify it. Maybe they should create a function to trim the links or something.

SonyEricsson k320i

I just got myself a sony Ericsson k320i last sunday. My old phone was seriously out-of-shape and I think its time for me to change it.

With a price tag of RM438, heres what I got

- Bluetooth
- Java support
- IRda support
- 15MB storage
- USB connectivity
- GPRS/MMS support
- VGA camera
- MP3 player

More information about the phone here

I just succeeded syncing it with Evolution, I'll be posting a howto for it in my next post.

Mugshot : A Social Network For FOSS User

Fedora users might have heard about it, but not other FOSS users. I think I'm going to help them with some promotion :D

Heres the link to Mugshot Website.

Mugshot makes it easy to show off what you're doing online and keep track of what your friends are up to. Learn more about what you can do with Mugshot at the features page.

Mugshot is designed and developed in the context of an open source community project. For information on how you can contribute, visit our developer site and our blog.

So, what do it offers?

• A place where you can view Blog, Digg, YouTube, Myspace, (and much more) activities of your friends all in one page.


• Desktop integration with Mugshot's Desktop Stacker


• some more fancy stuff

For the list of features, go here -> http://mugshot.org/features

There are 2 things that I love in mugshot. One is the Desktop Stacker, and the other one, which I just discovered, a group chatroom!! Below are a screenshot for each

Mugshot Desktop Stacker


Mugshot Group ChatRoom


Musghot also provide a Flash widget for your blog or website. And here's mine (I couldnt get it to fit my blog navbars)

Visit my Mugshot page

So, feel interested?. Come and Sign Up NOW!

What do I see in the Fedora LiveCD-Creator project

I have been playing around with livecd-creator for a while now. And these are some possibilities that I can see from the project + the custom distro project.

• Flexibility in creating customized liveCD (obvious)
• A lot of Live distros based on Fedora will be emerging in the OpenSource world
• Fedora will become a root for possibly a distro that can succeed in market more that itself
• and best of all - the LiveDistros won't be needing to host ISOs!!

Flexibility in creating a customized liveCD

This is the most obvious reason of all. The livecd-creator script uses a simple and easy to understand config file (which actually is a bash script - and theres a plan to move to kickstart) to generate the liveCD. Basically any user who have experience installing gentoo from stage1/stage2 or installing fedora into chroot can get the hang it in no time. The config also is not that hard to understand if you are a newbie. Its quite easy to customize it if you know bash/sh scripting.

A lot of Live distros based on Fedora will be emerging in the OpenSource world

Easy to do = lots of people will play with it

Fedora will become a root for possibly a distro that can succeed in market more that itself

Day by day I see Fedora growing in term of code maturity and community. With the right tools and the right person to lead the way, we might be able to see children of Fedora that can make their parent proud.

LiveDistros won't be needing to host ISOs!!

Ok, now this is what I love so much when playing around with livecd-creator. The livecd-creator script stores the configs and customization stuff for the LiveCD inside a RPM package. Therefore, new distributors can simply host that RPM package, and let users who interested to use it to generate the LiveCD themselves .. with latest packages and updates!!!!

Imagine this, a student who just started to get into distro development has created a LiveCD using the livecd-tools. He dont have enough money to find hosting for the ISO images. He just upload the RPM into his blog, and interested users can simply get his liveCD by generating it themselves!!

The distributor also does not need to worry about getting sources of all the packages he/she used for his distro to meet with GPL requirement. He/she only created and distributed the config that define the distro, other packages are fetch directly from online repositories (which already have the sources) by the user/person who generate the ISO image. So, considering the distributor does not distribute the other packages, he/she does not need to provide their sources. Providing the source for the config RPM is enough to fulfill the requirement. (I might be wrong in this opinion, please correct me if I am)

=======

I enjoy seeing this development, and it makes me happy becoming a Fedora user. To the Fedora Team , good job!! . And thanks a lot for giving me a GREAT distro!. <(^-^)>

Geany : A multi-language, fast and lightweight IDE using GTK2

I noticed a package in Fedora Extras called Geany while shopping through packages using synaptic .. The description says

A fast and lightweight IDE using GTK2

Currently I'm using Anjuta for my assignments and course C/C++ work, but to me, Anjuta is too much for my simple day-to-day programming - which sometimes I just do it on Gedit or Vi - , so I decided to give Geany a try.

At first, I expected it to be a lightweight C/C++ IDE , but to my surprise after launching it, it support lots of languages~!!!!!. C/C++, Java, PHP, Bash Scripting, Python, Ruby, Perl, etc etc. And it does not only support syntax highlighting, but also a basic code completion, a basic class browser, some other simple tools , and best of all, compiling/executing the programs written despite the various languages it supports. Geany select the compilers/interpreters automatically and use it when you click the compile/execute button

The UI is easy enough for use, simple, and effective. It does not have all those advanced project-management modules like Anjuta and Netbeans, but it have everything it needs to be an IDE for simple applications.



A Windows installer is also available from the official Geany site's downloads page

Psalms of Planets : Eureka Seven

I just finished watching this Eureka Seven this afternoon ( yup, I'm kindof late) , and it was GREAT!. The series was a little bit slow in the beginning , but as the series develop , I grew to love this anime. The storytelling , the character development , everything, was done greatly if not perfect. The series gets interesting by each passing episodes of a total of 50 episodes.

The story is about a boy, Renton Thurston, who lives with his grandfather Axel Thurston in a city called Bellforest, until one day, a mecha , piloted by a mysterious girl, crashed onto his house. Starting from that day, his life changed and he set on an adventure with the girl, Eureka and a group of ex-military renegades The GekkoState. The story revolves around his relationship with Eureka , the conflict between the GekkoState and the Federation , and the mystery of the Coralians.

The storyline have plenty of high-flying mecha battles, confusing yet interesting scifi element, heart-touching conflicts, and love theme. After you finished watching the last episode, you'll end up having a very mixed emotions. The last time I felt like this was after the end of Sailormoon Season 1 (which I watched less than a year ago, considering that I'm into anime just recently, other sailormoon seasons is not as good as season 1), FateStayNight, and ShakuganNoShana (yup, 3 times in less than 6 months. I was marathoning animes which i've just downloaded).It makes depressed(because it ended)+happy(the ending is so happy)+craving for more. And now i'm in a state of withdrawal because of that. I just downloaded a different anime but I simply couldn't watch it. I WANT MORE EUREKA7!!

I noticed that this anime is not quite widespread in Malaysia. Anime lovers in Malaysia who havent watched this. Get it while there are still people seeding it. A good anime like this comes once in a blue moon and I really recommended everyone who loves anime to watch it or you'll regret it.

I'm not really good in writing reviews about TVseries of movie so I leave you all with the wikipedia entry of the anime. I need to find a way to get out of this withdrawal syndrom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Seven - Warning! A lot of Spoilers

Don't beg for it,
Go for it,
Do that and you'll get it.

Lolifox - Firefox for anime lovers

Yeah2, i know, the name sounds kindof erotic. But well, its their rights to put that name isn't it?. I got to know about this browser from a post at our new UTP-OSS Google Group so i decided to try it.

A visit to lolifox's site is a little bit of a disappointment. There are no screenies .. me wanna see screenies .. haha .. frankly, screenshot is one of the most effective way to bring people to use gui based apps .. Also, there a very little information about what are the uniqueness of this firefox fork/mod besides having some large collections of anime bookmarks and a modified interface for ftp/gopher browsing..

I downloaded the linux version of the browser to give it a try, there are no rpm/dep packages, the binaries is only compressed in a tarball - like hows firefox is packaged. Okay, this is a small matter, its not going to become a system's web browser anyway.

These are the screenshots from my first run of the browser. Nothing much impressive, it looks 90% like the vanilla firefox2.0. The most notable change is the ftp/gopher interface and the preview when you pointed at the tab ( i think this is just an extension that being coded into the browser directly )

IMHO, unless you want that good looking ftp/gopher interface , I think this mod can still be achieved by using the vanilla firefox browser. However, it is still too early to judge it, because currently its only version 0.3 . Perhaps in the future it will improve. I'll be looking forward for more improvement by the team. Until then, I'll stick with my current sleek FF2.