In case your GNOME keyboard configuration is not working at session startup, and you start GNOME session using gdm autologin or startx from console (like in this bug), it was admitted (by Daniel Stone) it is an issue with X server (will be tracked here). Thank for clarification, Daniel (and for enabling my fd.o account as well BTW)!
According to the schedule, the next release of xkeyboard-config has to be made tomorrow. It seems I won’t make it – I still do not have access to CVS (because of the story with the keys in Debian). Sure I filed a bug for site wranglers – but God knows how long it will take to deal with it…
My apologies for the possible delay and all inconvenience it may cause.
There is a lot of legacy, practically unmaintained stuff in xkeyboard-config. I am trying to be very conservative regarding dropping it – there are people using old hardware, you know… The time has come for the sun-specific and sgi-specific rules. They are very old, Sun people do not use them. So, the files rules/sun* and rules/sgi* are gone now in CVS – and they will be missing in the next release (due in May). The layouts and keymaps are still there – that code is too precious to be dropped earlier than … anyway, not today.
So, the GUI Editor for XKB layouts is finally approved as GSoC project. I am sure, Simos will not screw it!
Walter Bender leaving OLPC – is a bad news itself. But it is a seriously bad news if it indicates that OLPC leaves true Open Source/Free Software way… That project has been a great promise – and it would be soo sad to see it dying…
For some while, I was being asked why layouts are organized on per country basis. Now, it is time to stop these discussions. I made a large commit to xkeyboard-config, putting loads of ISO (639-2/3166) codes into base.xml.in. So, when next release is out, layouts and variants can be selected by either country or language – whatever is best for the user. Now, I have a request to everyone reading this blog – could you please look at the resulting file and check whether your layouts/variants are listed with proper country/language (please keep in mind – the attributes of a variant are inherited from the enclosing layout, unless explicitly overridden).
The code in libxklavier to support this information is committed (though, some more functions are planned). The gnome-keyboard-properties capplet will benefit of it soon – the code is not in SVN yet, but at least you can look at the screenshot:
The size of the font reflects the number of layouts/variants available for the language.
First, a bit of advertising (unpaid, of course;)). Proporta makes really nice cases for mobile devices. I got this for my kid, that for me and that for my darling wife. The velvet(?) case Nokia provided for n800 is simply <censored>. They made it much better for n810 – but still, very far from perfect. So, if you like leather (like I do), my recommendations… The only issue I found so far – there is no space provided for storing the screen-wiping cloth…
I finally found time to organize music retrieval – from my home server into my tablet. The solution of course is rsync-based (now that we have nice grsync UI). On the server, I created a directory (“staging area”) which contains nothing but several symlinks to some directories in the media storage area of the server. rsync server allows read-only synchronization from this staging area (only for some particular IP, just in case…). So once I execute corresponding profile in grsync – all the music from symlinked directories is pulled or updated to the tablet.
A couple of minor things to care about. First, chrooting should be disabled for that rsync server entry (otherwise symlinks do not work). Second, I got funny issues rsyncing into FAT32-formatted microsd. It pulled all files every time – there is some problem with timestamps. Once I started using –size-only option, everything is working just perfect.
The rsync server configuration entry is as follows:
[lyava2] path = /mnt/array1/share/sync/lyava2 comment = Sync area for n810 hosts-allow = lyava2 read-only = true use chroot = no
The rsync command line is
rsync --recursive --copy-links --verbose --compress --size-only rsync://bill:10873:lyava2
(Non-standard port is used because built-in rsync in my Buffalo NAS has its config file rewritten every time I change sharing settings through the Web UI – so I have two instances of rsync).
That is why a lot of free software people consider Miguel as some kind of “Pro-Microsoft Trojan horse”. That posting looks to me like rather impudent attempt to shift community attention from one real problem (patents-charged OOXML as ISO standard) to some set of other (also real but still) unrelated issues.
The latest release of GSwitchIt plugins is using libsoup 2.2. Because of the high demand, I am upgrading it to latest 2.4 (they broke the API slightly, bad boys!). New release is to be made RSN (actually, the code is already is in SVN).
In case if any student is interested in some fame in X Window universe (and bounty from Google or course), there is a couple of XKB-related projects on XOrg page (see Misc section). Feel free to contact me as mentor if you feel like doing it. A lot of fun (and some share of swear words – I’ll teach you some Russian ones, they are very rude) is guaranteed!
In case if your layout switching using 2 Alt keys (default in GNOME) is broken (for example, in the Ubunty Hardy) – there is a good chance xkeyboard-config has nothing to do with it. Most probably, you see consequences of that bug.
“GSwitchIt plugins” did not get much care from me last year. Now, another useful plugin is in the development – allowing user to specify any name for the layout labels in the keyboard indicator. So instead of “USA” and “Ger” you can setup “Bush” and “Merk”, if you like. The idea is inspired by this bug.