Category Archives: Software

WordPress 2.8 upgrade – beware SVN!

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Just had a rather nasty experience trying to upgrade to WP 2.8 using svn switch to move to the 2.8 tag – it resulted in the whole thing going pear shaped during the upgrade process and complaining about:

Fatal error: Class ‘WP_Widget’ not found in $wordpress/wp-includes/default-widgets.php on line 15

Turns out that the files in SVN don’t match what’s in the 2.8 tarball, and the 2.8 tag in SVN doesn’t work. The fix was to rsync the files from the tarball over SVN. Very very weird (and the first time I’ve had such problems!).

Digikam Problem with KDE 4.3 beta 1

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If you’re using the Kubuntu 4.3 beta 1 packages for Kubuntu Jaunty you’ll likely find that you suddenly can’t view your albums any more. I traced it down to the following error in my ~/.xsession-errors file:

Could not open library '/usr/lib/kde4/kio_digikamalbums.so'.
Cannot load library /usr/lib/kde4/kio_digikamalbums.so: (/usr/lib/libdigikamcore.so.1: undefined symbol: _ZN6Marble12MarbleWidget16addPlaceMarkDataERK7QStringS3_)

Basically Digikam needs recompiling against the version of Marble in KDE 4.3 to get its symbol names fixed. Doing it isn’t that hard, you need to do:

sudo apt-get build-dep digikam
apt-get source digikam
cd digikam-0.10.0
dpkg-buildpackage

Once that’s done (and it’ll take a while) you’ll have 3 new packages in the parent directory of digikam-0.10.0, the Digikam package, a package for showfoto and a package for Digikams debugging symbols. Just use “sudo dpkg -i ” to install them.

Denis Ritchie’s Documents Gone From Bell Labs ? (Updated)

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Oh dear, it looks like Denis Ritchie’s web pages, and all associated documentation, has gone 404 at Bell Labs and, worse still, it’s been removed from archive.org due to the Bell Labs robots.txt file.

Now I really wish I’d grabbed a copy of the B documents he had there! 🙁 If anyone has a copy or an alternative location if it’s moved elsewhere I’d love to hear from you..

Update: Thanks so much to Ian for providing copies and pointing out that the original webpages and documents have re-appeared.

KDE in Space – Planck Researchers Using Kst

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A press release from the University of British Columbia (found via a tweet on the Planck CMB telecopes Twitter feed) talks about their use of the KDE program KST, a real-time large-dataset viewing and plotting tool, chosen because of the amount of data that would be generated:

But the cameras will produce a large amount of scientific data to process–with the LFI instrument alone producing more than 100 Gigabytes a year. Traditional data plotting and analysis packages like MATLAB and IDL wouldn’t cut it.

Both UBC and the University of Toronto have been involved with the development of the KST project, and the Canadian Space Agency has contributed funding to it.

KDE 4.3 beta1 Released

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I so hope this finally fixes my Kopete TLS problems! Need to wait for the Kubuntu packages to appear..

Update: the Ubuntu Jaunty packages are currently in the Kubuntu experimental PPA. Downloading now..

Update 2: Upgrading ain’t for the faint hearted, I’ve had to remove packages, used dpkg --force-overwrite -i /var/cache/apt/archives/$foo.deb a couple of times and generally had a fun hour or so trying to upgrade. All done now so this is being edited with the new Konqueror:

Version 4.2.85 (KDE 4.2.85 (KDE 4.3 Beta1))
Using KDE 4.2.85 (KDE 4.2.85 (KDE 4.3 Beta1))

Debian Gives Up on Glibc (Updated)

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It appears that the Debian developers have finally gotten to the ends of their tethers trying to deal with the foibles of GLIBC and its maintainer. There’s a post on Aurélien Jarno’s blog saying:

I have just uploaded Embedded GLIBC (EGLIBC) into the archive (it is currently waiting in the NEW queue), which will soon replace the GNU C Library (GLIBC).

He gives a list of reasons for the change, all of which seem to make good sense. My concern (like many others) is that I worry about the impact if they are unable to keep compatibility with glibc based distros – though it’d be nice if they followed Debian’s lead on this (which they may do if this leads to a much easier working relationship with the maintainers – which doesn’t appear to be that hard to achieve!).

Update: If you’re curious to see what packages will be affected there is a list of the Debian packages built from the eglibc sources available.

(Via LWN)

Sensible talk on patents from ZDNet

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Like many western nations that built up their industries under protective laws and now demand that developing countries remove restrictions that they relied on we see Microsoft doing much the same with Tom Tom, as ZDNet points out when discussing why Microsoft are eager to avoid talking about the details of their patent case..

The TomTom claims cover such things as a multitasking computer on which you can run programs, in a car. A wireless Internet-connected computer, in a car. And how to create long file names in the MS-DOS filing system–a fix introduced in Windows 95 because MS-DOS is a direct descendent of 1974’s vintage 8-bit CP/M operating system. A direct descendant? More a bastard child: MS-DOS helped itself freely to many of CP/M’s design concepts, in some detail. But those were the days when Bill Gates could say that software patents had the potential to put the industry at “a complete standstill” and with good reason. If the sort of protection Microsoft now claims for itself had been available to CP/M then, Microsoft would never have created its monopoly, nor amassed a fraction of its power.

Hopefully Tom Tom now being a member of the Open Invention Network will give Microsoft pause for thought. As regards how the system currently works, I cannot put it better than how ZDNet sum it up:

The patent system is not just broken, it is poisonous. It works by fear, using the civil courts as cudgels in the hands of bullies.

Sadly I suspect it’s unlikely to change in the near future.. 🙁