Archive for the 'Fedora' Category

KDE black screen bug after updates

Published on 23 March, 2012 in Kororaa. 7 Comments

It appears that the updates to KDE 4.8 (from 4.7) may have broken the desktop for some Kororaa users. You might experience a black screen when you log in. You can still launch programs by pressing Alt + F2, but your regular desktop is missing.

This is because of incompatibilities between versions of the configuration file for the desktop plasmoids (plasma-desktop-appletsrc) that Kororaa ships (this bug does not affect Fedora as it does not ship this file). The upcoming 17 release will not ship this file.

To fix the problem, just move (or delete) this file out of the way. If that doesn’t work, you can try moving your entire .kde directory out of the way and it will create a new one when you next log in.

When it’s booted and before logging into KDE, switch to a terminal by pressing:
Ctrl + Alt + F2

Then log in as your user, and run:
mv .kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc .kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc-broken

Then logout:
exit

Switch back to the graphical login:
Ctrl + Alt + F1

And log in. You may have to re-create some KDE settings, like shortcuts in the panel, but it should get you going at least.

Alternatively you can press Alt + F2 and run “System Settings”, select “Workspace Behaviour” and change the “Workspace” type to the netbook interface.

ricci and libvirt with luci = error

Published on 10 March, 2012 in Fedora and Tech. 0 Comments Tags: , .

If you’re setting up a cluster on RHEL with ricci and the machine is also a virtual host, you might have problems adding it to the cluster in luci (even though everything looks good – firewall is open and you can communicate on the port).

The error is something like:
unable to receive header from server on 11111

This is because the server is looking for a .libvirt configuration directory for the ricci user, but it doesn’t exist. Simply log onto the node and perform the following as root:
mkdir /var/lib/ricci/.libvirt
chown ricci:ricci /var/lib/ricci/.libvirt

Now you can successfully add the node to the cluster using luci.

-c

Kororaa 16 reviews

Published on 22 December, 2011 in Kororaa. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

ZDNet has published a review of Kororaa 16, if anyone’s interested. There’s also a nice video review on YouTube.

Kororaa 16 (Chum) released

Published on 16 December, 2011 in Kororaa. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

It was a little while in coming, but it was worth the wait! It is my pleasure to announce the release of Kororaa 16 (codename “Chum”) which is now available for download.

Features
Derived from Fedora 161, this updated release comes with the usual Kororaa extras out of the box, such as:

  • Tweaked KDE 4.7, GNOME 3.2 and base systems
  • Third party repositories (Adobe, Chrome, RPMFusion, VirtualBox)
  • Firefox 8 as the default web browser (with integration theme for KDE)
  • Firefox extensions included (Adblock Plus, DownThemAll, Flashblock, Xclear)
  • Microblogging client (Choqok for KDE, Empathy for GNOME)
  • Full multimedia support (excluding Flash, see next)
  • Installer for Adobe Flash plugin
  • Jockey device manager to handle drivers such as AMD/ATI and NVIDIA
  • Video editor (Kdenlive for KDE, OpenShot for GNOME)
  • VLC as the default media player
  • SELinux enabled (particularly worthwhile for Flash)
  • English (Australian/British) support & dictionaries
  • and more..

Desktops
The GNOME 3 desktop has several custom themes available, as well as numerous extensions to provide an enhanced user experience (and help ease the transition from GNOME 2.x). It also comes with the GNOME Tweak Tool to allow further customisation.
Kororaa 16 desktop - GNOME

The KDE desktop has a custom layout with specific default applications, such as Firefox for the web and VLC for media, etc.
Kororaa 16 desktop - KDE

Upgrade
It is still recommended that existing Kororaa users perform a fresh install, however we are working on experimental support for in-place upgrade and hope to post more information soon.

Users still on Kororaa 14 should upgrade to 16 as the older version is no longer supported upstream. Unfortunately for users who wish to stay with GNOME 2.x, this means you will need to upgrade to GNOME 3. Do not despair however, Kororaa includes a desktop switcher for GNOME 3, so that users can switch between the new Shell interface and the 2.x style Fallback mode. Just run the “Switch between Shell and Fallback desktops” link on the desktop (see screenshot above).

Word of thanks
We are starting to get a nice little community around Kororaa and I’d to thank everyone for their help and support, which is greatly appreciated. I’d like to especially thank the following people (in alphabetical order), who have helped make this release possible:

  • Alan Gindlesperger (almigi)
  • Hedayat Vatankhah (Parsidora Fedora Remix)
  • Ian Firns (firnsy)
  • Jason Nielsen
  • Jim Dean (ozjd)
  • Liam Campbell (lijcam)
  • Matthew Oliver

Feedback
We’d love to hear your feedback on the forums, so download it today and let us know! :-)

Thanks!

Note: Kororaa is not provided or supported by the Fedora Project. Official, unmodified Fedora software is available through the Fedora Project website.

Recovering from 3rd party drivers, with Jockey

Published on 16 December, 2011 in Fedora and Kororaa. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

What happens if you enable a 3rd party driver (like ATI) with Jockey, but after a reboot your graphics is broken and you can’t log in to revert?

Answer: Use the command line version of Jockey!

Here’s how you can revert any installed 3rd party driver using Jockey from the command line:

  • At log in (perhaps with a broken X screen), switch to another terminal using the key combination:

    • Ctrl + Alt + F2

  • Log in as root
  • Get a list of enabled drivers from Jockey:

    • jockey --list

  • Disable the driver (such as the ATI driver):

    • jockey --disable=kmod:fglrx

  • Once it has finished, reboot!

When using Jockey, you should ensure that you have the latest updates applied, in particular the latest running kernel. This is because you might otherwise get a driver for a newer kernel, which might break your system upon reboot, or fail to activate.

You can also try using akmods with Jockey, which will build a new driver for you on reboot, if one does not exist for your running kernel (no matter what that is!).

-c

Using akmods with Jockey in Fedora

Published on 16 December, 2011 in Fedora and Kororaa. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

By default, 3rd party drivers (such as NVIDIA and ATI) are pre-compiled against a specific kernel version and delivered in a kmod package. However when there’s a kernel update, it might block because there is no updated driver package yet available. This can also break a system if you update the kernel and reboot.

Wouldn’t it be great if the system could automatically build a new driver if required? Yes, and this is where akmods come into play.

With akmods, when your system boots it will check to see if a registered driver needs to be built. If you have an updated kernel, then akmods will build a fresh driver for that kernel and install it – no need to wait for a kmod to be updated upstream. This avoids the broken system scenario above.

While akmods are nothing new, you can now use them with Jockey under Fedora 16 (rather than just kmod packages). Simply download the RPMS from a Kororaa mirror and install (or you could build your own from SRPM).

You will need:

  • jockey
  • jockey-selinux
  • jockey-modaliases
  • jockey-gtk or jockey-kde

Post install, edit the /etc/jockey.conf and set “akmods=true”. Then, you can run Jockey and install the driver you want.

Jockey driver manager

You will also need build tools like gcc, make and kernel-headers (and of course, akmods), however these should be pulled in as dependencies of the akmod package.

This is still an experimental feature and any feedback is welcome!

Kororaa Facebook page

Published on 8 December, 2011 in Kororaa. 0 Comments Tags: .

For anyone who’s interested in Facebook, I’ve created a page for Kororaa. I’m new to all this Facebook stuff, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Thanks,
-c

FIX: Kororaa 16 GNOME Shell crash

Published on 29 November, 2011 in Kororaa. 4 Comments Tags: , , , .

This took me a while to find, but removing the nautilus-pastebin package will stop GNOME Shell from crashing when searching (as seen in Beta 16). No restart required.

sudo yum erase nautilus-pastebin

Sorry about that, it was very hard to find!

Thanks,
Chris

Kororaa 16 (Chum) Beta released

Published on 20 November, 2011 in Kororaa. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

The first beta release of Kororaa 16 (codename “Chum”) has been released and is available for download, in 32 and 64 bit versions for KDE and GNOME. This new release includes major updates of most packages including the kernel, office and desktops (KDE 4.7 and GNOME 3.2).

Upgrade
We are currently working on a way for existing version 15 users to upgrade to the final release of version 16, however this is not yet available for the beta release. For those wanting to test out this release, it is recommended to perform a fresh install or use a virtual machine. It’s a Live DVD, so it can be tested without installation too :-)

Known issues

  • Some addons for GNOME have caused crashes and the gnome-shell-extension-alternative-status-menu is not included in the beta. To shutdown, hold down the Alt key while hovering over Suspend option in menu.
  • Searching (Alt + F2) in GNOME causes Shell to crash.
  • Jockey (the proprietary driver manager) was accidentally left out, but is installable (GNOME: jockey-gtk jockey-selinux KDE: jockey-kde jockey-selinux)

Desktops
The GNOME 3 desktop has several extensions to provide an enhanced user experience (and help ease the transition from GNOME 2.x). It also comes with the GNOME Tweak Tool to allow further customisation.
Kororaa 16 desktop - GNOME

The KDE desktop has a custom layout with specific default applications, such as Firefox for the web and VLC for media, etc.
Kororaa 16 desktop - KDE

Features
Derived from Fedora 161, this new major release comes with the usual Kororaa extras out of the box, such as:

  • Tweaked KDE 4.7 and GNOME 3.2 base systems
  • Third party repositories (Adobe, Chrome, RPMFusion, VirtualBox)
  • Firefox 8 as the default web browser (integrated with KDE)
  • Firefox extensions included (Adblock Plus, DownThemAll, Flashblock, Xclear)
  • Microblogging client (Choqok for KDE, Empathy for GNOME)
  • Full multimedia support (excluding Flash, see next)
  • Installer for Adobe Flash plugin
  • Jockey device manager to handle drivers such as AMD/ATI and NVIDIA
  • Video editor (Kdenlive for KDE, OpenShot for GNOME)
  • VLC as the default media player
  • SELinux enabled (particularly worthwhile for Flash)
  • English (Australian/British) support & dictionaries
  • and more..

Feedback
We’d love to hear your feedback on the forums, so download it today and let us know! :-)

Thanks!

Note: Kororaa is not provided or supported by the Fedora Project. Official, unmodified Fedora software is available through the Fedora Project website.

What’s in a name? The meaning behind Kororaa

Published on 10 November, 2011 in Kororaa. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Many users have asked me why Kororaa is called Kororaa. It’s hard to spell and it’s hard to say (it’s even a rude word in some languages, sorry about that). Well, I’d like to share the meaning behind the name.

The word Kororaa is an alternate spelling of the Māori word Kororā, which is a name given to the smallest of all penguin species, the little penguin (Eudyptula minor):

Korora Penguin
(Photo from Wikipedia licensed under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2)

They are also known as little blue penguins, but when I was in school I knew them as fairy penguins (I guess I could have called my distro Fairy Linux instead).

These gorgeous little penguins stand at just 30cm (12″) tall for fully grown adults. They are native to Australia (where I come from) and New Zealand, although there have also been reported sightings from Chile (where they are known as Pingüino pequeño or Pingüino azul).

Not only are they the cutest penguins around, they are also the penguins responsible for the Linux mascot, Tux. That’s right! Linus was visiting Canberra and while at the National Zoo and Aquarium was bitten on the finger by one of these little penguins. Later, when it came time to think of a mascot for Linux, Linus couldn’t get that cute little blue penguin out of his head and so Tux was born.

Story behind Tux
(Photo from Wikipedia licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)

So, Kororaa might be hard to spell and it might be hard to say, but it’s a real word and it has real meaning :-)