Linux

KDE 3.5.2

KDE 3.5.2 was released yesterday. So, in keeping with tradition, my Latitude C840 churned away last night and built it under Gentoo. And I’m happy to report, once again, that KDE 3.5.2 (built from source under Gentoo) appears to run just fine.
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KDE 3.5.1

I just noticed that KDE 3.5.1 was released this morning. As per normal, Gentoo is a little behind given that the stable version in the portage tree is 3.4.3. I feel like a bit of a broken record since this is a repetative story; I’ve been running KDE 3.5.0 on Gentoo since it was released with no issues. And as per normal, I will be building KDE 3.5.1 and expect few, if any, issues to pop up.

Update: I’ve been running 3.5.1 now for a week with no issues; if you run Gentoo and you’ve been waiting, I see no real need to wait. So start building.
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KDE 3.4.3

KDE 3.4.3 was released recently. As per normal, it’s still marked as unstable. I had been running 3.4.2 since July and encountered absolutely no issues, but in the Gentoo portage tree KDE 3.4.2 is still marked as unstable. It’s too bad since all that delays like this cause is flak and headaches for the package maintainers. I worry that if things like this continue, especially on major packages that Gentoo will lose support. I’ve said it before, what we really need is a place on the web that people can post their success (or lack thereof) with various packages. No not the Gentoo bug tracking site, a place to mostly list sucess. Again, I show FlightGear as an example: FlightGear 0.9.5 for the longest time was the latest stable version in the Gentoo portage tree, despite the fact that 0.9.6, 0.9.7 and 0.9.8 had all been released. That said, at least there are ebuilds for 3.4.2 and, more importantly now, 3.4.3.

I built KDE 3.4.3 on my Gentoo-based laptop over the weekend and am pleased to report that I’ve had no problems with it whatsoever. It’s a very minor release with almost no user-noticeable changes but quite a few bug fixes, also not very noticeable. In fact, the only change I actually noticed with 3.4.3 is that Akregator remembers the ‘status’ drop-down setting when switching between feeds. I’ve been talking with Aaron, who was recently hired per se by TrollTech to work full-time on KDE development, and I’m really looking forward to KDE 3.5 and KDE 4.x ever more so. Just thought I’d point that out.
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Gentoo binary packages

For the longest time I resisted any of the -bin packages provided in Gentoo. There were two reasons for this: Gentoo is a source-based distribution and with -bin packages I felt you didn’t get the best optimization for your hardware. I’ve now decided that I’m going to give in and use the binary packages on a select few applications that typically take way too long to build from sources.

The initial trial was done with OpenOffice. I did this for two reasons: the latest OpenOffice 2 Beta wasn’t available to build from source and last December when I build OpenOffice 1.1.4 it took my machine (2GHz P4) 9 hours and 36 seconds. Yup, nine hours. Overnight. When nothing else was running on my laptop. Did I mention it was nine hours? I decided that the slight optimization benefit, if any, that I was getting out of building OpenOffice from source was outweighed by the wear and tear of my processor and the hassles around trying to build the program when nothing else needs to be run. Not to mention the benefit of getting the latest beta of OpenOffice to use. It’s a good trade-off. And the new Beta 2 (known as 1.9.128) is really slick.
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ndiswrapper 1.2

Since I get a lot of traffic regarding my success using the D-Link DWL-G122 Wireless USB Adapter, I thought I would give an update on use with ndiswrapper 1.2. Executive summary: the D-Link DWL-G122 Wireless USB Adapter (that I have) still works using Linux Kernel 2.6.12 and ndiswrapper 1.2. Past entries on the ndiswrapper were made on 29-Mar-05, 07-Mar-05 and 04-Mar-05.

It had been so long since I last used the device, that I’d forgotten how to use ndiswrapper. I guess I have been making room in my memory for all the IFR reading I’ve been doing. In order to get the ball rolling, you need to modprobe ndiswrapper, but since I have a new kernel since my last post, I first needed to rebuild ndiswrapper. The rebuild was easy (thanks entirely to Gentoo) and once done, the module loaded fine. The message in the dmesg is:

ndiswrapper version 1.2 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
usbcore: registered new driver ndiswrapper

Then I ran the command line ndiswrapper program to ensure that the driver was still located properly on my system, as such:

~ # ndiswrapper -l
Installed ndis drivers:
prisma02 driver present

Okay, driver is still there. I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure you get the right driver for your DWL-G122 when doing your initial install. Do NOT get the driver from anywhere other than the D-Link site for your country (or for the country from where you got the device). Following other people’s links or using other files from other sources is simply asking for trouble and frustration. As I said in the past, I stuggled for several hours because I had the wrong driver entirely.

Now, you can connect your D-Link DWL-G122 to a USB port on your machine. I have tried connecting the device both directly to my machine and via the supplied D-Link dongle, which I believe is simply a USB extension cord, per se. In any case, once connected I get the following entries in dmesg:

usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
ndiswrapper: driver prisma02 (D-Link,07/07/2004, 3.00.21.0) loaded

Which is almost immediately followed by this in the dmesg:

wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:11:95:8b:9d:c1 using driver prisma02, configuration file 2001:3704.0.conf
wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP, WPA with TKIP, WPA with AES/CCMP

At that point, the D-Link DWL-G122 is ready to be used, provided there is an access point (AP) to connect to. I still haven’t tested anything other than an unsecured AP and a WEP encryption AP as I do not have a router capable of WPA. Once I get that I will report back. Or if anyone else has been successful with WPA, let me know and I’ll update this entry. If you have more questions, like before, Feel free to email me. You do that by taking my two initials (look in the URL of this blog) and add @zymeta.com.

WARNING: If using ndiswrapper 1.2, do NOT remove the device without first removing the kernel module as it will freeze your machine. If you need to be able to plug and play the device without mucking with the kernel module, then use ndiswrapper 1.1.

UPDATE: ndiswrapper 1.6 seems to function much better with the DWL-G122 (as per this blog entry).
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Flight Sim Yoke USB - review

I’ll prefix this entry with a disclaimer; I’m not a professional reviewer (if there is such a thing), CH Products didn’t pay me or provide my yoke at a discount and I don’t write many reviews. As such this is a raw collection of my thoughts and experiences with the CH Products Flight Sim Yoke USB.

I’ll start with the packaging, which was solid and well thought out. It might seem silly to consider this but since it’s a somewhat specialized product, I suspect that the majority of people buying this will end up needing to have it shipped. The box offers good protection such that no part of the yoke touches the outer box so it is fairly safe to have this shipped and expect it to be completely undamaged upon arrival. My yoke was pretty much in perfect condition, though one of the long screws that holds the top and bottom of the base together had fallen out and was in the bottom of the box. All that was required was to screw that back in and all was well again.

The yoke looks and feels solid, though it is light enough that you can easily maneuver it around with one hand. The yoke has the equivilent of 12 buttons; 4 buttons, 2 up/down toggle buttons and 2 two-way rocker buttons. There’s also an 8-way ‘hat’ switch, basically a mini-joystick on the right side of the yoke. The yoke also has three levers; one for throttle, one for propellor and one for mixture. The yoke also has a trim wheel, that can either be used to adjust the yoke prior to use or as an actual trim wheel during flight.

When I plugged the yoke in my Linux kernel recognized it right away, though similar success with that will likely be dependent on having the proper modules compiled/built in. The next step is to attach the yoke to a surface of some kind (or you’ll get your little brother to sit beside you an hold it). The base of the yoke has two screw-driven clamps which allow you to firmly attach to yoke to your desk, coffee table or kitchen counter, so long as it’s an inch thick (the minimum the clamp will go).

I then loaded up FlightGear which had no issues handling the yoke’s inputs (I also happen to have a demo version of the latest X-Plane for Linux which also had no issues with the yoke). Flying around in a simulator with the Flight Sim Yoke USB is a complete treat, much more so I presume if you were a keyboard pilot prior. The first circuit I did using the yoke was the most realistic flying I’ve done in front of a computer. Of course, most of you probably all know this. For me, I haven’t used Microsoft Flight Simulator since I gave up Windows in 1995 (I played the original Flight Simulator from SubLogic). I didn’t mind since at the time Microsoft seemed to be worrying less about realism and more about ‘gaming’. Plus it didn’t run very well on my older computers. But in the past couple years I’ve been mucking around with FlightGear, using the keyboard only.

The main yoke action is as expected and has a realistic feel. The yoke is slightly spring loaded such that it returns to centre, but the actual centre is rather mushy. That is, if you move the yoke from it’s starting position and then release it, it doesn’t necessarily return exactly to where it was. This is more noticeable on the up/down axis than it is on the left/right. I think that this is likely by design to give a more realistic experience. I’ve read elsewhere that other people’s yokes have done the same so I don’t think it’s a flaw in mine.

I think the only thing I didn’t like about this yoke is placement of the three throttle levers. The levers are placed right behind the right-hand side of the yoke, which makes it a bit awkward to reach. That said, after a while you get used to their placement and work around it. And if you are using the twin or multi-engine throttle quadrant (sold separately from CH Products) then it’s a moot point.

Overall, the Flight Sim Yoke USB is a solid product, that I would easily recommend to anyone looking for a flight yoke to use with their flight simulator of choice.
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KDE 3.4.2

Another KDE has arrived; version 3.4.2. It’s hard masked under Gentoo at this point but if I’m feeling adventurous I think I’ll go ahead and build it. The nice thing about KDE is that when released it’s always stable and there are very few Gentoo-specific patches required to make it function.

Update: Even though it’s still marked as unstable on Gentoo, I installed KDE 3.4.2 and thus far have experienced no problems.
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Flight Sim Yoke USB - part two

My Flight Sim Yoke USB arrived this afternoon. Kudos to PC Toy Shop for shipping it so fast. And it doesn’t hurt that I live in a neighbouring province (which makes ground shipping not as bad you might think). If you are looking to buy PC accessories online, I recommend PC Toy Shop without question.

Anyway, when I got home last night, I plugged my new yoke into my undocked laptop and was delighted to see that the Linux USB subsystem recognized my yoke and created the appropriate /dev/input/js0 device. And when I read from that device and moved the yoke around the typical array of random characters appeared so all looked good. Next step; try running FlightGear.

I started up FlightGear with the “auto coordination” option enabled since I don’t have rudder pedals (yet) and voila, I was flying with a yoke. Just like that. I have a pretty stripped down kernel but my yoke worked just fine. I didn’t bother trying the yoke with any other applications since I am only interested in using it to ‘fly’.

If you are having issues getting your Flight Sim Yoke USB (from CH Products) to work, feel free to contact me. I am currently running Gentoo Linux with the 2.6.12 kernel. I’ll try and document what’s required along with a review of the yoke later once I’ve had time to ‘play’ with the yoke. In the meantime, see you in the virtual skies… I’ll be the one practicing IFR stuff.
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KDE 3.4.x finally stable on Gentoo

Happy Canada Day! And to celebrate the nation’s birthday, the Gentoo developers finally marked KDE 3.4.x as stable. Actually, I don’t think Canada Day had anything to do with it, but one never knows for sure, right?
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