Mageia 3, the WONT FIX scim bug, and iBus

Mageia 3 has been released and, so far, the distro is getting very positive reviews.  Well, given the fact that I have been using Mageia since version 1, I believe that the team behind the distro truly deserves words congratulating their efforts.  As a Mageia user, I must say that I am very pleased with the OS and thankful for the work that has been done.

However, I received yesterday an email that, like a cloud on a blue sky, announced that not everything is rosy in the Linux world.

During my walk in Linux land, I have had the chance to read the complaints of users that get angry when developers refused to fix a bug they filed.  They vented their frustration and slashed to the right and left with sarcasm sharp as swords.  I read their sometimes long expositions and missed the spirit of their rants... until yesterday, when I received a reply from a developer concerning a bug that I filed.

First, allow me to present the context.  Three days ago, I described my experience trying to make Mageia 3 work with Japanese IMEs.  My first attempt was iBus, of course, although I knew it was not working properly in Mageia 2.  As it did not go well, I worked with SCIM and, after a battle, I made it work thanks to a package I "borrowed" from a PCLinuxOS repository.  Then, I filed the bug.

That's the point where my new story starts.  The reply came, brandishing a WONT FIX status that made me uneasy.  However, the comment from the developer bit me with angering poison; it read:

"We are promoting ibus for years. So there we do not include all scim packages in live ISOs."

The "live ISOs" part was bad enough because I obviously gathered the packages from the full list of repositories, not just the Live Core and Live Nonfree ones.  Hey, I can presume that, if you enable the Core Release repo, you should have access to the same packages that a Mageia 3 full DVD install gets, right?

The real sting was on the former part, though.  I can understand the efforts to promote iBus, but I tried that IME first to no avail.

Allow me to show you my case.  After installing iBus, anthy, and all required dependencies, you log out and back in to get iBus working. This is what you get:

iBus is active, showing only "English keyboard"

You right click and go to preferences to add extra languages

You scroll down and locate Anthy by expanding "Japanese"

After adding it, Anthy should be working.  But you click on the iBus applet and...back to square 1: English keyboard only. You can repeat that as many times as you like, using all languages that you desire.

Regardless of what you do, iBus simply refuses to "remember" any additional language you choose.  Not a very usable IME, right?

In Mageia 2, iBus would work, but would mess up with the Spanish keyboard map, ruining your chance to type accents correctly.  In Mageia 3, the said IME is simply dysfunctional and the developer won't add the scim-anthy package that is missing in SCIM so that Japanese input works...because the idea is to promote iBus, an IME that is now in a worse state than it was in Mageia 2.

I must confess that, for a moment, I got really angry.  I finally grasped the spirit of the hurt users who got the infamous WONT FIX tag for the bugs they filed.

But then my anger ebbed when I tried to see the position of the developer.  iBus is, in all accounts, a great tool.  SCIM is a good oldie, but it is somewhat difficult to get working.  Developers have the right to work on what they choose, especially when they squash bugs voluntarily and without any monetary compensation.

So, instead using this as an excuse to release all the tension that has accumulated lately (these last two weeks have not been a ball, really), I decided not to show how fluent I am in sarcasm when rabid. Ken Starks said that "rants are best served cold".  He is right.

For my part, I waited until my wrath, the propeller that efficiently takes me to the Land of a Thousand-and-One Regrets, ceased to spin.  Then I filed another bug.  This time, for iBus.

I truly hope they get to fix the problem.

UPDATE (May 23, 0:23)
I recently changed my desktop install from Mageia 3 Live to Mageia 3 DVD.  It turns out that iBus works now like a charm.  I guess the bug only affects Live installs. 

Happy Anniversary, LinuxMigrante!

Tomorrow Megatotoro's blog, La Esquina de un Migrante a Linux, will celebrate its 3rd Anniversary.

Although Megatotoro migrated to Linux a bit later than I did, he took his migration seriously and learned a lot of Linux tricks before I did, all thanks to Mepis, Pardus, and AntiX, his distros of choice.

I have learned quite a bit reading his entries.

Thank you and happy anniversary!  Keep up the good work!

Mageia 3: Here's what I gained and what I lost

Mageia 3 was released today and I downloaded the Live DVD version to replace my Mageia 2 Desktop install without further consideration.  Normally, I test the betas and the RC of a distro carefully in a virtual machine.  This time, sadly, I had no time to do that.

In my old Windows days, I would simply install the new release on top of the old one.  If something went wrong, I used the "bear-and-grin philosophy.  With Linux, I have been extra careful before updating the OS, but I guess that this was the time to test whether or not I could leap blindfolded into a new Mageia OS.  So, here is the summary of my adventure:

Mageia 3, here I go!!!

First impressions

I moved from a 32-bit architecture to the x86-64 architecture that the Live DVD includes.  To make my life easier, I wiped out the root partition and left the home partition intact.

The DVD booted without a problem and, after asking me the regular questions (language to use, if I accepted the license, where to install), the process completed in about 16 minutes.  I was prompted to add my root and user password and to reboot.  Again, I chose to use GRUB and not GRUB2 because I am not confident with the latter quite yet.

The system booted picking up my other OSs without a problem.  Then, Mageia 3 enabled the network and started downloading the common repositories.  After this process, I saw my desktop.  Although my wallpapers had been replaced by a solid black color, I simply located my favorite pictures and put them back on.  My personal settings had been preserved (effects, configurations, icons, etc), so I was quite relieved.

With KDE 4.10.2, the system became noticeably faster.  I tried to pinpoint the changes, but they were not so easy to spot for my untrained eye.  However, I gradually noticed that menu translations were more consistent, that the "home" tag had been replaced by "START" under "PLACES", that all my other partitions were listed under "DEVICES" and that the "space available" mini bar that appeared below a connected USB device was gone and only the big bar at the foot of the Dolphin window stayed.  I guess the duplicity was purged.  The notification system seemed to have received a cleaning, too.

I also noticed some new software entries in the general menu.  I decided to explore those later because I wanted to reinstall my favorite programs.  Thus, I fired up MGG (oh, new graphics that match the start screen) and enabled some other repositories (backports, tainted).

Mageia 3 played MP3s out-the-box.  Amarok impressed me with its performance this time!  However, Mageia 3 got stuck on some .mp4, .flv, and .mpeg video files.  I installed VLC (which took care of the video problems), audacious, and audacity.  So far, Mageia 3 was performing as a great substitute for my Mageia 2 install.  I saw myself as a version of Mario, the game character, jumping up and falling on top of mushrooms that could not stop me.  But then...

Watch out, Mario!  Here's the boss!

I installed Wine, the x86-64 version, that is.  Some of my programs were not working...

What do you do then?

I mean, it's not that those Windows-based programs are absolutely required.  However, they are convenient to have around.

So, I uninstalled the 64-bit version of Wine and got the 32-bit one instead.  Problem solved, let's go on!

That was too easy...

Here's the REAL boss!

I must have an IME to type in Japanese.  In Mageia 2, I gave up iBus because it messes up the Spanish tildes (accents) in LibreOffice.  That was not a big deal because I had always used SCIM anyway.

In Mageia 3, iBus refused to display the Anthy Japanese IME regardless of what I did. It also changed my keyboard configuration from Spanish to English and, on top of that, the tildes in LibreOffice were a mess, as expected.

"I'm going to be your opponent, Mario"

"OK, iBus is not an option," I thought. "Fine, let's install SCIM and forget about this problem".

And I installed SCIM only to find out that, after doing all I know to enable it, the IME simply refused to work properly.  Again, Anthy was not showing...

There I was, with a great system that did everything I needed, except accepting Japanese input.

I was a little discouraged, but open MCC and, after a while, discovered that a package was missing: scim-anthy!  Obviously, without it, I could never make SCIM work with Anthy.

I Googled "scim-anthy rpm x64" and landed on RPM pBone.net, where they were hosting a scim-anthy package built for PCLinuxOS.  I downloaded it and, in a desperate move, I installed it to Mageia 3.  MCC simply asked me to install Kasumi along.  I accepted and MCC retrieved Kasumi from the Mageia repositories to do its thing.  The computer did not blow up.

Not a confident Mario any longer, I opened LibreOffice and...Anthy was there!
よかったね！本当に、よかった！PCLOS、たすけてくれて、ありがとうな！

With SCIM working, I filed a bug and, more at ease, finished adding up the remaining software that I need to work comfortably with my new Mageia 3 Desktop install.

Overall Balance

I got a good scare with the IME, but it's working now.  Aside from that, everything seems to be performing right on cue.  KDE is responding faster, Jovie and its text-to-voice service is working in multiple languages, and I haven't seen any major problem, like a crash or something.

I guess the leap of faith was worth it.


UPDATE (May 21, 7:33PM)

I also updated my laptop from Mageia 2 to Mageia 3.  As with the desktop install, everything worked fine.  However, despite I use the fix I described here to get Mageia 2 pick up the WPA2 wifi of the university, Mageia 3  simply refused to work with it for two hours.  Then, the problem solved by itself (?!).  I hope the rainstorm had something to do with it.
 

A Journey of Three Years.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of this blog.  Three years already?  Time surely flies by!

I created mandrivachronicles almost a year after I first encountered Linux.  The idea was to record my experiences with the OS and to use them as reference material.  After all, I migrated to Linux on my own: no Linux fan persuaded me to start using this great OS, nor I had used it before.  I had no technical knowledge (I was a long time Windows user).  To be blunt, before migrating, all I knew about Linux was that it was an operating system other than Windows and that it used a penguin as a mascot.

However, after having used Linux daily for a year on my netbook, I decided that it was time to install it to my main desktop computer and to say good-bye to Windows. And so this blog was born.

I never expected my entries to be read by many people and I really did not consider that my experiences could help others.  It was great to see other people also enjoyed reading about my humble steps into Linux land.

I have also discovered that:

• Through this blog, I met people who inspired me with their tales of courage, knowledge, talents, and efforts.  And it was painful when some of them passed away (R.I.P. Eugeni Dodonov, Mandriva) or got sick (Texstar, PCLinuxOS).

• Linux interest, despite FUD, is on the rise.  You can take a look at the numbers in Distrowatch.  When I migrated to Linux in 2009, it took Ubuntu 2249 visits to be the first distro ranked.  Today, the 3rd position has 189 visits more than that.  Back in 2009, the last distro had 73 hits. Today, the 100th position is counted with three digits and has almost two times that number of visits.

Source: www.distrowatch.com

•  It's OK to use the OS that you like, but you must embrace your choice and live with it.  I know that some people get annoyed when they overhear me speaking of free software; it's more annoying for me when they come to me to complain about the poor performance of their Windows computers or want me to fix them.

• The fate of Linux distros (even those who are relatively strong) is uncertain. When I migrated to Linux, I chose Mandriva, which was #6 back in 2009.  Today, that distro is #46.  Ubuntu and Gnome had their own bumps.  Sadly, Fuduntu disappeared this year.

• Linux is addictive.  I started using Windows and Mandriva.  Then, it was only Mandriva.  Today, I regularly use Mandriva, Mageia, PCLinuxOS, Mepis, AntiX and, occasionally, Pardus.

• For non-technical computer users, it is perfectly possible to abandon Windows and MS Office; it only takes an open mind.  I personally know five people who have done it without any problem. Besides, most smartphone users have already done so, but they haven't realized it.

This blog has been a journey, an ongoing learning process in which I changed, adapted, laughed, suffered, and rejoiced.

I did notice one thing.  Since I abandoned Windows, the frustration associated to using my computers has vanished.  The only reminder I've got of that once-too-familiar feeling is the multiple complaints I hear from my colleagues at the office, as they try to work on a non-Linux desktop computer.

Good news is always welcome

Getting hit by this seasonal flu has not been exactly fun.  I've been doing my best to keep up with my work and studies but, at this busy hour, I'm glad it's me who gets the virus and not my computer.   Starting my work from scratch AND recovering from the flu would be a lot worse.

Anyway, I got some refreshing news:

1.  There are Mageia 3 Live images!

2.  OpenMandriva finally decided on a logo.

3.  Pardus released a community version.

Update to PCLinuxOS KDE 2013.04 successful

I ran the update yesterday on my laptop and it was a breeze.  Now the machine is running KDE 4.10 at last.

I checked and all of my configuration stays:

• IME for Japanese (SCIM) is perfectly functional.
• Auto-hiding panel works flawlessly.
• Wine is responsive
• Latest version of LibreOffice running fast

I even added a keyboard Spanish layout and it picks accents without any problem.

The World IS Changing...Ask Robots

Today, I read how the United Space Alliance, a NASA contractor, started a migration from Windows to Linux here.  The article includes this interesting comment by Keith Chuvala:

"We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable – one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could.”

This makes one wonder why they did not opt by the "great" security of Windows 8.

But more than that, I wonder why it is easier for space specialists to migrate key operations to Linux than it is for my colleagues at the university to type documents in an office suite other than Microsoft Office.  Shouldn't it be the other way around?  You know, the United Space Alliance is migrating key operations as in "if this crashes, the space station crashes" or, better yet, "if this fails, the shuttle goes to the Sun instead of Mars".

However, I realized that not all is lost.  If professors aren't flexible to change, ironically, robots are: there will be a conference on robotics and several robotics workshops at my university (this sounds like science fiction in my country).  Remarkably, I read this:

"Para los talleres es importante llevar su computadora, preferiblemente con Ubuntu o Debian instalado." (It is important to bring your own computer to the workshops, preferably with Ubuntu or Debian installed).

What? Are they implying something there?

Well, R2, the first robonaut, runs on Linux according to the article on the United Space Alliance...  Maybe we are on the right track down here at the university where I work after all.

This reminds me of a comic strip I saw in 2009, when I migrated to Linux.  It's Tira ECOL #393: "Robotito con Windows (tm)".  You can see the original (in Spanish) here.

Translated from Tira ECOL #393

Note: Colgarse (lit. "to hang oneself up")= to crash :P

The GRUB Battle Again: Getting Mageia to Coexist with AntiX

Regardless of what people say about netbooks, their portable factor is very convenient for teaching.  However, I wanted to change some of the distros on the HD of my Dell Inspiron Mini 10. It formerly sported

1. Mandriva 2010.2 (main production distro)
2. Pardus 2011
3. Mepis 11
4. Mageia 2
5. Mandriva 2011

The problem was that Mandriva 2010 was way too old and Mandriva 2011 way too heavy for the little thing.  Plus, I wanted a distro that could boot the small machine fast in case something popped up and all of the above distros booted in more than 1 minute and 15 seconds (well, except Mandriva 2011, which took a good 2 minutes on the modest specs of the computer).

So, I decided to clean up the partition table, which was a mess because all of  my grub learning has taken place in the netbook, basically.  Thus, I wiped out all the distros and created a new partition table to start afresh.

I decided to start by putting Mageia 2.  The installation was OK as usual.  Then, I installed AntiX because it picked up the Wifi of the machine and it includes LibreOffice (I tested Slitaz, but it would not pick up the wifi and Vector Light took 50 seconds to start).  The installation went perfect and I placed the GRUB on its corresponding root partition.

The problem was that AntiX boots with GRUB2 and Mageia's GRUB, sitting comfortably on the MBR, simply refused to see AntiX.  To make things worse, I have very little experience dealing with GRUB2, so I could not find the way to collect the information that I needed to edit GRUB manually.

Therefore, after trying everything I could think of and failing, I put the issue aside and installed Mepis 11 to see if its GRUB could pick up AntiX.  Although I did not have any installation problems, Mepis installed a GRUB that saw Mageia, but AntiX continued on the hiding.

However, I had an idea: given than AntiX and Mepis share several points, why not trying with the information on Mepis' GRUB using the AntiX kernel?

It was sort of crazy but I gave it a try.  So, once on Mepis, I went to /boot/grub and opened the file menu.lst with Kwrite and copied the entry for Mepis:

title Mepis at sda 8 newest kernel
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda8 nomce quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img
boot

Then, I booted up Mageia and went to the same location (/boot/grub).  I opened Konsole and entered su, followed by my root password.
After that, I typed :

export $(dbus-launch)
kwrite

and pasted the entry twice (one for Mepis and the other for AntiX).

Then I changed one to read:

title AntiX at sda 7
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.6.11-antix.1-486-smp root=/dev/sda7 ro splash
initrd /boot/vmlinuz-3.6.11-antix.1-486-smp
boot

and saved the file.  I rebooted and the new entries where shown by Mageia's GRUB.  I tried the one for Antix and voilà!  AntiX booted the netbook.

Table contrasting the distros on the HD

Yes, Mageia 2 can coexist with AntiX after all and the Dell netbook is now a triple boot.  However, I am saving partitions for Pisi Linux, the new Mandriva release, and Elive.

I guess I need to start learning how to work with GRUB2, by the way...

Connecting PCLinuxOS and Mageia to a WPA2 Enterprise Network

The University where I work has proudly put up a new network for remote access. Among its advantages, one can count that there are more access points, its has a more robust security, and that the user only needs to register once. 

One additional point for Linux users is that, as opposed to Windows, you do not need to download any software, install it and run it to be able to log in. It is a WPA2 Enterprise network that uses PAP for authentication. 

However, there was a problem: although the University provides a Linux guide for configuring the network, this document only describes the process for Ubuntu and network manager. 

When I tried to follow the instructions in PCLinuxOS 2013.2 and Mageia 2, regardless of my attempts, the connection would fail. Both Linux distributions use drakenet instead of networkmanager and the former simply refused to cooperate. 

Yesterday, I found the way to make the elusive WPA2 Enterprise network talk to PCLinuxOS and Mageia. All that is needed is to go to /etc and open Konsole to modify a file. So, you have to type su, followed by your root password. Then, as you need to open Kwrite to edit a file, you must type the following command to circumvent a problem that prevents Kwrite from launching: 

export $ (dbus-launch) 

Then, to open Kwrite, type:

kwrite 

After some warnings, the GUI of Kwrite pops up, so use the menu to locate the file called wpa_supplicant.conf. Go to the end of the file and append these lines there:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
network={
    ssid="Network-Name
    key_mgmt=WPA-EAP IEEE8021X NONE
    proto=RSN WPA
    eap=TTLS
    identity="name.surname"
    password="password"
    phase2="auth=PAP"
    pairwise=CCMP TKIP
    group=CCMP TKIP
    scan_ssid=1
    mode=0
}

Then, save the file and close everything. Reboot your machine and that makes PCLinuxOS and Mageia work with this new University network. 

The more I use Linux, the more I learn :)

Mageia 3 Beta 3, A Quick Test Drive

I tested the Beta 3 of Mageia 3 today.  To summarize my experience, I can say that it looks solid, reliable, and promising.

First, I tried the Live version in my laptop.  After booting, the distro let me use KDE 4.10.  The first thing I noticed was the smoothness of the effects.  Even the cylinder and the sphere work now: 

 

I had absolutely no problem with sound, USB drives, or, more importantly, the wi-fi.  Mageia 3 B3 picked up everything out of the box in Live mode.

Then I installed the distro to a Virtual Machine.  I saw nothing new in the installation process, but after the install, I saw some new artwork in the Mageia Control Center.

Once the repositories were updated, I gave Mageia 3 B3 my Japanese IME test: I installed iBus, Anthy, and Japanese fonts.  To my relief, the IME worked flawlessly with LibreOffice 4:

Finally, I opened some YouTube videos and MP3s and there was nothing to report there, either.

I really liked the progress that the Mageia team has made. Kudos to them!

There are days in which we should avoid computers

Yes, there are days in which we should avoid computers.

You know, during those days, in an ideal world, we would get an alert message urging us to get a professional diagnosis.  Then, a doctor would run some quick tests on us and would advise us not to touch a computer in two-to-five days or so.  Even the horoscope should say something like: "Taurus:  Because of the influence that Mars exerts on hard drives, keep away from any computer not to ignite trouble".

The user: sometimes the worst danger a computer faces

I am not only talking about older folks that cannot tell a CD and a DVD apart or about technology-blind people who stare at you blankly and go "Huh?" when you ask them "What format did you use to save that document?".   I am talking about each and every individual who uses a computer, be it a Facebook junkie or an IT manager, a Linux guru, or BSD/Haiku developer.  Anyone should keep distant from computers sometimes.

Call it a layer 8 reading fail, the PICNIC result or the well-known ID-ten-T error, the fact is that we sometimes cause havoc on a perfectly sane and healthy OS because of our own interaction with it... even if we cannot explain why. 

Take, for instance, what happened to me last week.  I started browsing the Web with my prefectly functional Mageia 2 Linux box.  Meanwhile, a small voice coming from the back of my head was urging me to shut down the system and go do something safer, like locking myself out of the office not to have easy access to the computer.  Yet, I chose to ignore the call of Wisdom and, after reading about the latest Java manace, I decided to run a test for rootkits on my system.  That was when I lost my grip on reality and went down the rabbit hole.

I must say that I use Firefox and have NoScript, AdBlock Plus, and other add-ons for security.  On top of that, I had disabled iced-tea.  However, I ran the tests with rkhunter and found a worrying message: A rootkit called Gaskit was installed on my system!

Panic invaded my brain and the Windows mentality took over; in a second, I was trasported to a day four years ago, when virus infections were as dreadful as expected, and all my neurons went in zombie mode to format and reinstall the system.

Even so, I visited some forums and read that, after a Mageia update, rkhunter flashed false positives.  I was familiar with false positives since my Windows days, but the zombie neurons had already multiplied and ate up my remaining sane-thinking ability.  I began formatting.

Luckily, the format-reinstall process is accomplished with greater ease and speed in Linux than it takes in Windows: in about an hour and a half, the system was up and running as it was before my sanity collapsed.

Without the fear, I began reading more about how to actually test if Gaskit was installed or not.  I tried the verifications and guess what: it had been a false positive all along!

I could almost sense the resentment coming from the computer.

From that experience, I learned that one should monitor oneself for stupidity before using a computer.  We all know when we are being stupid, don't we?
And then, if the stupidity level is exaggeratedly high, we should simply walk away from the machine until we regain some sense.

The computer will be grateful.