This is the archive for August 2006. Recent posts can be found at the main blog page.
Sabayon menu location
Monday, August 28, 2006 ★ 09:53 ★ Category Gnome ★ Permanent url
Why exactly is Sabayon (the user profile editor for Gnome) in the main menu in the “Other” category, while all other related software (such as Pessulus, our lockdown editor) is in the “Computer”, “Administration” menu?
After all, I need a root password to start the thing and it is not exactly what you call “user software for everyday use”...
I’ve attached a patch to bug 331615 to fix this issue. Could it please be included before Gnome 2.16 ships? Thanks.
Update: RESOLVED FIXED. Patch committed, bug fixed, Gnome rocks.
Password hell, part II
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 ★ 13:06 ★ Categories Gnome, Linux ★ Permanent url
It works: single sign-on in GDM with both ssh keys and Gnome keyring! See below for more information.
This is an update on my previous article about the password hell.
Several people have pointed me at pam-keyring. I’ve built and installed this package and included the necessary lines in /etc/pam.d/gdm, but it doesn’t seem to do anything on login (no keyring environment variables are set, no output in log files). On logout, these lines are logged to /var/log/auth.log:
pam_keyring: received order to close session pam_keyring: could not retrieve gnome-keyring-deamon PID
I’ve done an initial Debian package of pam-keyring. I’m not familiar with Debian packaging (I’m just a happy user) so I’m not planning to maintain or support it. Please contact me if you want my debian/ directory which builds and installs the package correctly.
If anyone can be of some help, that would be greatly appreciated.
Btw, it seems the NetworkManager guys are also aware of the problem. They seem to take a different approach, though (system-wide configuration): Bug 331529 has more information.
Update: If I change an if statement in the code to if(1) it seems to work, but only when using “su – uws” (this uses /etc/pam.d/su). GDM and ssh logins (/etc/pam.d/gdm or /etc/pam.d/ssh, respectively) still don’t work…
Update 2: I’ve fiddled somewhat with my pam files and now it works (after a GDM restart). I’ve put the pam-gnome-keyring inclusions in the pam files before the pam-ssh inclusions and I tried some other stuff as well (such as rm -rf /tmp/keyring*), but I don’t remember exactly what I did…
Update 3: One of the Debian NetworkManager maintainers asked for the debian/ directory of my initial package. I hope apt-get install libpam-gnome-keyring will be working soon…
Password hell: gdm, ssh and gnome-keyring
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 ★ 09:44 ★ Categories Gnome, Linux ★ Permanent url
When I log into my laptop machine by entering my username and password into GDM, After logging in, I often find myself opening two of my SSH keys:
- one key is used to login to some remote hosts, eg. the machine I host my mail on;
- the other key is for my Gnome CVS account. I’m using a separate key for this service, so that I can use it on other machines without sharing my normal per-machine (laptop) key.
However, this causes me to enter my password at least three times! When I’m at home and my laptop tries to connect to my access point (long live network-manager) I also need to unlock my Gnome keyring, so that the total amount of passwords needed to get my machine running is four.
Luckily, there’s a solution for the ssh keys:
libpam-ssh(simplyapt-get install libpam-sshon a Debian box). You need to add two lines (the ones containingpam-ssh) to/etc/pam.d/gdm, one aftercommon-authand one aftercommon-session. First one:@include common-auth @include pam-ssh-auth
Second:
@include common-session @include pam-ssh-session
Make sure you use the same password to unlock your ssh keys as you use to login to your machine. By default,
~/.ssh/id_dsa,~/.ssh/id_rsa, and some other files are used. I simply symlinked my~/.ssh/id-rsa-gnomefile to~/.ssh/id_dsato load both keys, without fiddling with system-wide configuration files.Now I only have to enter two passwords on login. Victory! Well, almost… does anyone have a solution for gnome-keyring (except for password-less keyrings, which are not option for laptops)?
Update: I’ve posted an update on this article.
Missing comma
Wednesday, August 16, 2006 ★ 16:40 ★ Category Programming ★ Permanent url
I was writing a chunk of SQL code and tried to execute it. However, MySQL choked on the input and printed the following error:
ERROR 1136 (21S01) at line 22: Column count doesn't match value count at row 3
Pretty obvious to fix, you might think. I just forgot to provide a value for a column in my
INSERTstatement. However, everything seemed correct in my editor. The query was split over more than 50 lines (multiple records inserted in one single query), and line number 22 was just the first line of those…It took me ten minutes to figure out what was wrong: a missing comma between two long (multi-line) strings caused silent string concatenation of the two, causing the above error. Ugh. Try to spot that one on your 8pt terminal!
A short Baobab UI review
Tuesday, August 15, 2006 ★ 23:06 ★ Category Gnome ★ Permanent url
The Baobab Disk Usage Analyzer is part of gnome-utils these days, which means it will be shipped in the upcoming Gnome 2.16 release. I had never tried the program until tonight. Several UI problems have occurred to me, so I decided to write a mini UI review for it. The linked screenshot contains some numbers that I refer to in this article.
Baobab screenshot. Click to enlarge.
First of all: what’s the reason Baobab needs a tabbed view (see 1)? The two tabs take a lot of space for no good reason. I don’t really see why the file search (which is a confusing name, since the menu contains a find item too) shouldn’t open in a new window (spatial). The tabs do not respond to the usual keyboard shortcut. Filed as bug 351530.
Why is the file search needed anyway? Nautilus searches in files too, and so does Beagle. Some integration work could be done.
Baobab features a stop button on the toolbar (see 2), but it doesn’t respond to Escape and has not equivalent menu item (preferably in the Analyzer menu item) either. Filed as bug 351532.
The toolbar contains a checkbox, for no good reason (see 3). It should be hidden in the preferences window with a explanatory tooltip (this is not an obvious setting for most users). Filed as bug 351534.
Hidden files are shown by default, which might be a good thing (see 4). However, I do think they need a distinct colour. Filed as bug 351535.
The treeview uses a lot of bold fonts, while there’s no reason to do that (see 5). Filed as bug 351538.
The colored bars in the treeview are only shown after scanning is done, it seems (see 6). Why not show them in a disabled (faded) state until they can be painted? Hiding/unhiding widgets results in a confusing UI. Filed as bug 351540.
Ctrl-O doesn’t open the Open directory dialog. Filed as bug 351542. (update: yay, fixed)
The red or green flashing circle is ugly. I guess a throbber widget (like Epiphany has) at the right side of the toolbar is better. (see 7). Filed as bug 351543.
What use has the status bar (see 8)? There’s a status line at the top too (see 9). Having two places with status information is confusing. The statusbar has too much padding as well, causing the resize grippy to look ugly… Filed as bug 351544.
If the treeview had sortable column headers, they could be used to explain the columns: path, size, percentage, number of objects (see 10). They could be used for sorting too, obsoleting the toolbar buttons and the menu item. Filed as bug 351545.
Scan home folder should be the default action. It should also be the first toolbar button (and menu item). Perhaps Alt-Home should work as well as a keyboard shortcut. Filed as bug 351546.
Please don’t take any of these complaints personally. I’m not trying to attack anyone. Baobab is a useful tool for a lot of people and it should definitely stay in gnome-utils (some people beg to differ).
If you want to vent your opinion about a particular issue I raised, please do so in Bugzilla. This keeps the discussion centralized. Thanks.
We would all love an even more rocking Gnome desktop. Wouldn’t you?
Update: The rocking Baobab people have fixed most of the issues outlined above. Rock on!
Bugzilla points
Thursday, August 10, 2006 ★ 23:02 ★ Category Gnome ★ Permanent url
Recently there has been some discussion about the bugzilla points you can get in Gnome Bugzilla. The points statistic explanation page has recently been rewritten by Elijah Newren after some discussion in bug 347830. I fully agree with the comment made by Olav Vitters: it’s all about the positive side of being a Gnome contributor. Until now, there has not been any “competition” caused by the points system, so in my opinion that’s no argument at all. I love the points (I got 18 points right now, yay for me) and I don’t use the number to judge other people. For me it’s just a non-intrusive way to recognize frequent contributors.
Oh, and while I’m on the topic: please add the number of patches an individual submitted to Bugzilla to the formula. I know those numbers can be queried, since the “Weekly Bug Summary page does it too. I’m not sure which factor of the total number they should account for, though… maybe the same weight as the points you get for closing bugs?
In other news… hello Planet Gnome. For the curious: I am Wouter Bolsterlee:
- also known as ‘uws’ on irc.gnome.org
- the geek behind my personal website uwstopia
- a business card carrying member of the Dutch localization team: Gnome-NL. We have our own planet too: Planet Gnome-NL
- running JHBuild to smoketest the upcoming releases
- one of the people filing lots of bug reports (according to the Weekly Bug Summary page in Gnome Bugzilla I’m the number one nagger today!). Whenever I’m able to write a patch, I submit it.
The new world
Saturday, August 5, 2006 ★ 17:01 ★ Category Films ★ Permanent url
Once again a film about the Pocahontas legend. The New World is an Americanesque film (not my favourite). It happened to show in my local arthouse cinema, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered…
The main theme of the score is Mozart’s Symphony No. 23, which was written in 1773. The story itself played around 1600, which annoyed me quite a bit. The film itself wasn’t ‘antropologisch verantwoord’ (‘anthropologically correct’, quoting my girlfriend) either, portraying the natives as stupid people not knowing concepts like ‘love’, ‘faith’ and ‘dignity’. Once again, I don’t like American films…
Mar Adentro
Saturday, August 5, 2006 ★ 16:50 ★ Category Films ★ Permanent url
The Spanish film Mar Adentro tells the tragic story of a man fighting to die with dignity after being quadriplegic for 28 years. In The Netherlands, euthanasia has long been socially accepted (we even have laws for it), but in Spain this is not as easy.
Based on a true story. Well worth seeing.
The Bow
Saturday, August 5, 2006 ★ 16:43 ★ Category Films ★ Permanent url
The Bow is a film by Kim Ki-Duk, who also directed Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring , about which I blogged earlier.
Unlike Ki-Duk’s Bin-Jip, The Bow is a bit boring and also lacks wonderful surroundings with which Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring compensated for the slow story.
Random photo from Prague (July, 2005)
Who wrote all this?
Wouter Bolsterlee, also known as uws, a postmodern geek living in the Netherlands. Read more about me…
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