Apple Keyboards in Linux

Finally! After a year of cramping, odd hand contortions, and memory holes (ok not really the keyboards fault), I finally got my Apple keyboard to behave as I’d like.

Macintosh users are a peculiar breed with their FN keys and all. And whats with the Apple key? Linux and Windows users that try an Apple keyboard must face a keyboard that is controlled by the Apple Desktop Bus. The legendary Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) was used until 2005 before Apple moved to a USB desktop bus for it’s MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The unique desktop bus hardcodes function keys (only F1 - F6 though) as always on. This is a behavior that I’m unaccustomed to in Linux. After dealing with this for way too long, I have learned how to stop my left hand from cramping and have gotten the left side of my keyboard back, this is how I got it done:

Problems FN’ing

“The Mac’s keyboard layout is a little different from a standard PC one.”[1]

Learning the ADB keyboard is a pattern that can take time to acquire for the regular Windows or Linux users. The always on F1-F6 function keys always felt like a butler bringing Grey Poupon to me.

There are a couple easy options to change the ADB function key behavior: Powerbook buttons daemon(pbbuttonsd) provides an option to do this, but it has a couple odd bugs for me. Also lucky Intel-macs owners have a USBhid switch in /sys that can be easity triggered. Ahh, but this laptop is before that time. Therefore, the only way for me to go was to create a new keymap.

“I am the gatekeeper”

In Linux, key mappings are initially loaded for console with an init script. The script uses the loadkeys program to bind a new keymapping. By default many distrobutions and architechtures use the i386 profile console keymappings. Most keyboards are alike so this is acceptable, but obviously this mapping doesn’t have support for ADB keys. Macintosh keymaps are available but I’ve tried them and they are either depracated or for Old World Macs.

Keymaps are stored in /usr/share/keymaps, and are set using KEYMAP=”us” or KEYMAP=”ru-win” in the /etc/conf.d/keymaps init script configuration file. To load a keymap is easy enough:

loadkeys us
loadkeys uk
...

Test and pick a keymap that has the highest number of correct key mappings for the keyboard. The more keys that are correct the less the keymap settings for the X server will have to be corrected as they inherit these settings.

Warning:Don’t change /etc/conf.d/keymaps and restart the init script (/etc/init.d/keymaps) if the X server is running! It’s best to work from console with no X server going. If this isn’t possible using loadkeys in X seems to be ok but it has the potential to create an unstable OS, edit as need be and restart the computer.

When a good keymap is found print it to file it so it can be edited.

dumpkeys > /etc/default.kmap

The program showkeys can be used to get the keycodes. For my computer I had to find the values of function keys F1-F6 when fucntion is both on and off.

    Off   On
F1  59    224
F2  60    225
F3  61    114
F4  62    115
F5  63    reserved num-lock
F6  64    113

For each of the keys I switched all instances of their keycodes in /etc/default.kmap. I also added Control to the Apple key:

Keycode 125 = Control

Finish by referencing the new keymap to the KEYMAP variable in /etc/conf.d/keymaps. The keymaps boot script or the system will need to be restarted.

X Got Served

With a default.kmap defining the key mappings most will retain their settings… but not always all. For example, the Apple key doesn’t retain control.

The X server configuration file will need to be set up properly too. For most users it is best to use the “macintosh” keymap. Edit the keyboard section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the model along with whatever appropriate country code:

    Option      "XkbModel"      "macintosh"
    Option      "XkbLayout"     "us"

For the remapping special keys (Control, Alt, Apple, Caps…) I’ve seen many people use xmodmad (discussed next section). Xmodmap is a good program but it can be quirky at times. A better way to specify these keys is in the Xserver configuration file. These key definitions can be specified with the “XkbOptions” tag in ~/etc/X11/xorg.conf

The X server has a list of known keyboard mappings in /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.lst. From there I was able to map the Control key to Apple:

    Option      "XkbOptions"    "altwin:ctrl_win"

Gnome Bully

Gnome shouldn’t even anything to do with setting the keyboard unless it can properly edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf which it doesn’t. Keyboard mappings belong to the console and X server respectively. We discussed this before. If an error occurs that Xserver’s keyboard settings dont’ matching Gnome’s:

“The X system keyboard settings differ from your current GNOME keyboard settings”

delete Gnome’s keyboard gconf settings and it’s backup:

rm -r ~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd/

As of Gnome 2.20 brightness up and down, volume up and down, and mute should all be mapped to the Xservers corresponding values: XF86BrightnessAdjust, XF86AudioLowerVolume, XF86AudioRaiseVolume, XF86AudioMute. Use xev to discover if these values are correct and set the appropriate keymap in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

Mapping Other Keys

Not all keymappings can be defined in the X server configuration file, this is what xmodmap is good for.

First use xev to discover what values the keys are mapped to. Xev will be able to read keycodes as well as X server special settings: XF86AudioRaiseVolume, XF86AudioMute…

Forget about using the ~/.xmodmap file when using xmodmap. I found that it doesn’t always work. Xmodmap works better remapping through the program and then writting bash script to repeat these actions. Remapping keys with xmodmap can be done by:

xmodmap -e 'keycode 115 = Control_L'

Where “keycode 115″ is the key to map to left control key. Xmodmap can change, replace or swap just about all keybindings. Remapping may not be enough though and may work better if conflicting bindings are first removed and then reset:

xmodmap -e 'remove control = Control_L'
xmodmap -e 'keycode 115 = Control_L'
xmodmap -e 'add control = Control_L'

Eventually though some program will call on Xserver keymappings or perhaps binding have an expiration time and the xmodmap settings wil be lost. This is where xkbset comes in. It takes away the expiration values for keymappings.

xmodmap -e 'remove control = Control_L'
xmodmap -e 'keycode 115 = Control_L'
xmodmap -e 'add control = Control_L'

xkbset exp m

The exp argument turns expiration off. Put this in a bash script and add it to startup and the keys will be remapped.

• For Gentoo users, there is an xkbset ebuild in bugzilla.<

Getting About an ADB/Gnome Bug

Though xev displayed that XF86AudioRaiseVolume, XF86AudioMute were mapped correctly, Gnome failed to be able to connect to them. This is likely an issue with ADB. Going to “Keyboard Shortcuts” and and re-entering the values re-enabled the funtion keys but it wasn’t very convient. So I got gconftool-2 to do the job:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/keybindings/volume_down XF86AudioLowerVolume
gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/keybindings/volume_up XF86AudioRaiseVolume
gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/keybindings/volume_mute XF86AudioMute

Notes:

• Xserver has controls to adjust the brightness up and down but Gnome Power Manager will need to be installed for the widget to be seen.

  Resources

  • Adding extended character support
  • A Gentoo MacBook Pro setup
  • Florian Uhlig Gentoo MacBook page

Links Saturday

Awesome freakin’ week! Everything I put together worked, I guess it just works out that way sometimes. The big deal was updating the system which will be super important here in the near future. Generally people treated me real good this week - I’m unsure why but sometime it just seems people want me off. Bring it on ;). This may be sort of a wrap up for all this, hmmm sweet sorrow. Must not get weary eyed. Times will be better ahead, right? Maybe the hope will give me repreive, ama vitam.

Linux General

I found the Linux Distrobution Chooser a pretty thorough tool to test what distro may be best for the user. I took the test as if it was last year when I began using Linux. The distro it choose for me…?… mandriva, which definitely a good choice at that time.

Tom’s Hardware looks at the KPC the fabled hundred dollar PC. I’m pretty awed by the what looks to be a really good computer for the price.

The 7 Habits of Effective Linux Users make some very good points about using Linux effectively and is really well written.

Someone had to say it. Genbuntoo, lol.

Firefox 3 Quick Review and Setup Guide

After a few library dependency checks and a Firefox beta 5 build later, my update is 1.0 final, six day later and… phew! It’s good though since I haven’t touched my system with an update for six months.

Those that are regular viewers of this blog know that I’m a regular Epiphany user. Firefox 2 is a good browser but on my older laptop, I just found it too sluggish and resource greedy. Epiphany took alot of the fat that is the Firefox 2 frontend and put it in a lightweight GTK interface. Firefox 3 beta 5 would really need a good show for me to replace it, and it did and more. This is more of a setup guide than a review though I tossed in some pretty pictures. I’ll let the viewers decided how good Firefox 3 is.

Setting fonts

A good way to setup fonts is to use the css font value “medium” tag. The default font size set in the browser will reflect this value. I like to look at an array of font sizes to get an understanding of what font size to set. Take a look at these css samples to get a good idea of font and minimum font sizes to set.

For LCDs below 100 dpi I pretty much forget about setting a serif font. Serif fonts have many details and just aren’t easily readable unless there are enough dpi available.

• More on Fonts and DPI

Preferred Applications

I prefer to open new windows in tabs. As long as this is set in Firefox and the Preffered Applications control panel is set to use Firefox’s default, other applications opening a web page in Firefox will also use a new tab. I prefer to have the behavior of all new tabs open in the same manner though - in the background. This can be done in “about:config”(type in location bar), use the filter to find “browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground” and set this to true.

“about:config” yarn. I thought was pretty funny.

Epiphany Bookmarks Import

Firefox 3 won’t understand Epiphany’s bookmark file if imported directly. Therefore the rdf (bookmarks.rdf in ~/.gnome2/epiphany/) file will need to be converted. Thankfully the good people at Epiphany have created a translator.

Then I had select Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks in the menu and then click the import-button. It may take a minute for the information to enter the database and may even need a restart before the bookmarks are recognized.

New Bookmarks and Location Bar

It’s going to be interesting to see just what people think of Firefox’s new location/bookmark/tag bar. The folks at Firefox are calling it the “Amazing Bar” and it is pretty cool. The tagging feature of Firefox three looks like it would be beneficial though I have no idea how to use it. I also like this idea of quick bookmarks:

Clicking the star on the right side of the location bar will bookmark the site. Unfortunately, the bookmark will not show up in the drop-down Bookmarks Menu, it’s put in a different category and isn’t seen unless the bookmarks are reorganized. I wonder if Firefox 3 is complicating bookmarking by adding this extra level.

Already a few posts I have seen had say that they don’t like the expanded all-in-one location bar. No problem and easy enough to disable: in “about:config” preference name “browser.urlbar.maxRichResults”. Also an original location bar plugin is available.

GTK Scrolling… Held back a year

Firefox developers did a good deed and implemented a scrolling system into Firefox. Mousewheel scrolling can be adjusted in “about:config”. First flip “mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines” to false and then tell “mousewheel.withnokey.numlines” how many lines to scroll with each click.

Prefetching

I turn fetching off because it uses fewer resources. Flip “network.prefetch-next” to false.

Final Thoughts

“Parting is such sweet sorrow”
- Shakespeare Romeo And Juliet Act 2, scene 2, 176–185

Bye-bye Epiphany, at least for… now. Sounds funny but I’m going to miss it. Epiphany is a good browser but in almost every area Firefox 3 bests it. Firefox 3 looks to be a heck of a browser: it’s fast, uses less resources, and I do like it location bar function. Though, I am going to miss Epiphany’s integrated location bar/search bar. Why there are different bars for location and search I’m just not sure. Otherwise, I think I’m good for awhile.

• + fast, and light
• + very very compatible on all the websites I tested
• + location location location - location bar rocks
• - bookmark layout
• ? Is addons.mozilla.org run my the president of Firefox’s nephew?

Related Links

• Firefox 3 Beta 5 Ramblings - a few tweaks (haven’t tested)
• about:config definitions

coreutils and mktemp a dangerous pair

Yikes, road bump. I just got done with my “emerge world” (yes 5 days later [overnights a slow pc]) and did a –depclean. I got hit bad by this block on day two:

[blocks B     ] sys-apps/mktemp (is blocking sys-apps/coreutils-6.10-r1)
[blocks B     ] >=sys-apps/coreutils-6.10 (is blocking sys-apps/mktemp-1.5)

Unemerging coreutils to let in mktemp was a bad idea. Bye bye ls, mv, mkdir… oh boy. Thank god the net was still up and I was able search, discover and extract what I needed from a stage3 to be able to build coreutils. Fast forward to today and –depclean removed “mktemp“. This took down my network connection. I had to encourage a librarian to burn mktemp source to a disk, and had thank the lord emerge didn’t fail. It didn’t. I blame udept for the –depclean fiasco. But now my pc is up to date… almost almost.

WordPress Tips 2

Continuing from yesterdays tips I have a few tips that can help bloggers begin.

Purty Colors

Ok this is is more like for the coder blogger. Why have dull black text white back predefined html? Hmmm? Do your scripts just look plain dull? Well why not whip them into shape with TOhtml? What is that you say? TOhtml is a vim plugin that converts highlight syntaxing done in vim to HTML. Pretty cool you say? huh? How much? Well loyal listeners we’re dropping it’s average retail price for you and each new TOhtml you’ll get is ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! naw, you say! too good?! Where do I get it? Well faithful reader we’ll be glad to tell you that TOhtml comes bundled in every vim package.

Using TOhtml is as simple just typing “:TOhtml” at the vim prompt. TOhtml doesn’t print the best html though and often I find that I don’t want the TOhtml to create a separate page but rather as a segment in this blog so I created script that does this:

#!/bin/bash

# vm2html-segment
#
# Create HTML formatted text suitable for displaying syntax highlighting
# in a blog post, or possibly some forums.

FILENAME=$1

#vim -f +"syn on" +"let html_no_pre = 1" +'let html_use_encoding = "utf8"' +"let use_xhtml = 1" +"let html_number_lines = 0" +"so \$VIMRUNTIME/syntax/2html.vim" +"wq" +"q" $FILENAME

vim -f  +"syntax on" \
        +"colorscheme simple256" \
        +"let html_no_pre = 1" \
        +"let html_number_lines = 0" \
        +"TOhtml" \
        +"x" \
        +"q" $FILENAME

# Just need the colored syntax, deleting the HTML page information.
sed -i '1,/body bgcolor=/d' $FILENAME.html

# Adding preformatting first <pre> tag
sed -i '1 i <pre>' $FILENAME.html

# Line breaks no longer need to be defined with preformatted text.
sed -i 's|<br>||g' $FILENAME.html

# Remove the closing HTML tags.
sed -i 's~</body[^>]*>~~g' $FILENAME.html
sed -i 's~</html[^>]*>~~g' $FILENAME.html

# Add the closing preformatting tag
sed -i '$ a </pre>' $FILENAME.html

Post Ownership

Being blog-rolled is when a post the owner has written appears to belong to someone else because it has been reprinted. I use the creative commons attribution license here so my content is free distributable as long as there is reference to the original work but I have discovered that search engines can misinterpret the original owner of the post. Google has a fail-safe that can tell ownership of a post by that post linking to itself. I have created a script that can makes this simple:

#!/bin/bash

# vm2html-segment
#
# Create HTML formatted text suitable for displaying syntax highlighting
# in a blog post, or possibly some forums.

FILENAME=$1

#vim -f +"syn on" +"let html_no_pre = 1" +'let html_use_encoding = "utf8"' +"let use_xhtml = 1" +"let html_number_lines = 0" +"so \$VIMRUNTIME/syntax/2html.vim" +"wq" +"q" $FILENAME

vim -f  +"syntax on" \
        +"colorscheme simple256" \
        +"let html_no_pre = 1" \
        +"let html_number_lines = 0" \
        +"TOhtml" \
        +"x" \
        +"q" $FILENAME

# Just need the colored syntax, deleting the HTML page information.
sed -i '1,/body bgcolor=/d' $FILENAME.html

# Adding preformatting first <pre> tag
sed -i '1 i <pre>' $FILENAME.html

# Line breaks no longer need to be defined with preformatted text.
sed -i 's|<br>||g' $FILENAME.html

# Remove the closing HTML tags.
sed -i 's~</body[^>]*>~~g' $FILENAME.html
sed -i 's~</html[^>]*>~~g' $FILENAME.html

# Add the closing preformatting tag
sed -i '$ a </pre>' $FILENAME.html

Type “wordpress-link title of post” and paste in blog. This creates an invisible link and will not be seen.

Style Sheet

Commercial wordpress users will need to pay a few dollars to be able to create a custom style sheet. Some style sheet attributes can be added though within the html tags. For instance, I like padding around images:

<img src="http://linuxtidbits.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/link-saturday.png" style="margin:0 10px 5px 0;" align="left" alt="Links Saturday" /     >

WordPress RSS Feeds

A final note on WordPress RSS feeds. WordPress RSS feeds do the odd behavior of subsituting the username for the title of the feed. Changing to an ATOM feed can fix this but if you’re stuck with a news aggregator site that refuses feed changes the title can be changed by defining the name (alt tag) of the last image of the post:

<img src="http://linuxtidbits.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/wordpress-icon-128.jpg" style="border-width:0;" align="left" alt="WordPress Tips 2" />

Hope this makes blogging better!

WordPress Tips

Typing this blog for the last six months has been a tremendous honor to me. It is something I have learned to love and loved to do. First, I want to thank the tremendous folk as WordPress that made this happen. From the very first few times I used wordpress, I knew that it was top notch software and I humbly thank all of them for letting me be a part of it. Thank you. I wish many good wishes and fortune for a folk who envisioned software that provides beautiful collboration and ease of use.

WordPress 2.5 was released a couple weeks ago and carries on the good work. I’d like to provide a few tips I’ve learned over this time to all wordpress users and blogging in general.

RSS Feeds

WordPress by default only shows summary feeds. This is all good if wanting to get people to come to the website and comment but if just wanting to get the word out consider a full feed. In the Dashboard go to Settings > Reading to choose.

Linking to Other Articles

It took me forever to figure this out but there is a right way to link internal posts. I kept linking to previous articles and having tracebacks put in comments. Tracebacks are used so the owner of the blog knows who is linking to the article. A good idea but tracebacks from within the blog are unecessary. To prevent this use the relative link “<a href="/2008/04/04/random-thoughts/">Random Thoughts</a>”

Code to HTML Entities

HTML code doesn’t like key characters like < and &. Web browsers interpret such characters as HTML code and won’t print them. Therefore there’s a special syntax for writing the entities like < and & they will need to be encoded as &lt; and &amp;. Theres a good number of characters that require conversion. I found this script for perl on cspan that can encode to html but I don’t know a lick of perl so I prefer to encode with a website encoder.

WordPress Themes

No theme is perfect and even the best wordpress themes have minor bugs. For instance, the Ocean Mist theme I used prior wouldn’t give a proper return after emoticons. So after each I had to break <br>. Well the Ocean theme was fixed and I ended up editing a number of my posts. Generally it’s best to format correctly and either wait for the theme to be fixed or better yet tell the author about the bug. Many authors update their themes as necessary. The authors name can usually be found at the bottom of the page.

I’ll have a couple more tips tomorrow.

Gregarius on Lighttpd (Almost there)

For the last couple weeks I’ve been trying to build a personal news aggregator using Gregarius on a lighttpd web server. Unfortunately, I just don’t know enough about databases to be able to pull it off. I wrote about it though and it should be pretty feature complete. Anybody that has worked with databases might wanna take a look, I put it on the Gentoo Wiki:

• Gregarius on Lighty (Lighttpd)

Links Saturday

Rough week for me this week. At times we’re the trout, at time we’re the worm. So it goes. I can’t fix the world, some people I’ve decided have committed too many crimes, told too many lies, and are above the law - hiding! So, though this weeks “Links Saturday” may be just a bit, but I hope it lets us remember to “Be good to one another”.

Linux General

Abiword Returns:

In an amazing magical act, the less know Linux processor that could makes a magical re-appearance two years later. Abi-Word contains a bunch bug fixes plus a good number of added features like multi-language support. I’ll be taking a look at it soon too myself.

• Abiword Returns

Building a Daemon:

Building a daemon may sound scary, it’s written in C after all, well ok, it is, but I discovered this author does a really good job describing the initial steps to do so.

• Linux Daemon Howto

Rant - Perfect instance of careless media:

I fired off on this one. I’ve seen alot of careless blogs writen off by corporate computer webzines. Alot of the are designed to be provocative but I thought this hit below the belt.

• Open source will not save education

An Early Look at Webkitgtk

Harris: Hey… life is pretty stupid; with lots of hubbub to keep you busy, but really not amounting to much.”

• L.A. Story

Gnome is edgin’ to be innkeeper to two rendering engines. What was once thought set was drastically changed week prior. Never thought one view beyond one qualified contender soon another will be bending under the rope.

Unsure if there is a Ebert way to qualitize this. “Dog bites on masters and flea marks on kittens…” What do you say the borders around input boxes?” So this blue book is idiosyncratic and should be put in the atomitizer as quickly as possible. So it is. So so. But a few gloves can be mashed to jutting bone a little roiling sweat splashed. ThhhhhuuuunNk. Chhhchhh! Chhchh !! !

With a little tinker and tack an svn webkitgtk emerges and I go on my filthy dirge. Load times aren’t particularly quicker.

As of yet many tailorings have yet to be made in. Give one a true experience of what the web really appears, it does. As well as open in new tabs and such others.

Performance of a beta product isn’t such an honest contest over it’s gecko brethren but the Romans are calling for blood…

Webpapers flipped faster and it occurred less a where page resettings occurred during mid scrolls.

Take it easy though, save it for fight night..

—

In a completely unrelated note:

Can I Have My Atom Feed Yet?

In a valiant attempt to aroose our web domainers attention Steve’s spamassassin remains unperturbed. Three emails through two separate email accounts over the last four weeks, “echo… .. .” Here’s the nitty:

[http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/atom]
name = Dirk R. Gently
email = dirkrgently@excite.com
province* = Wisconsin
country* = USA

Oh, and the hatchi:

wget http://linuxtidbits.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/dirk-r-gently-e1-hack.png

Gentoo Type A - An Update to Gnome 2.22

Gnome 2.20 is a great desktop, I carefully thought though of just leaving it be. As Ben talked about couple days ago, there comes a day where we question, “Is my current Gnome the last in line?” For those of us with older pc’s we have to think of this. Then I wake up and get head back on and think I have to update it! *** slaps forehead *** what am I doing? So after working on it yesterday I’ve updated to Gnome 2.22. It was grueling work - work that I really loath.

First I had to unmask Gnome 2.22 in Portage which is as easy moving the Great Gnome 2.22 Mask contents form /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask and placing them in /etc/portage/package.unmask. For PPC some of these packages still need to be keyworded.

flagedit dev-libs/libgweather-2.21.2 -- +**
flagedit gnome-base/gvfs-0.2.1 -- +**
flagedit sys-apps/hal-0.5.10 -- +**
flagedit app-misc/hal-info-20071030 -- +**
flagedit sys-power/pm-utils-0.99.4 -- +**

There will be a couple of blocked packages. Blocked packages I don’t quite get yet. Fixing them though is simple enough. First remove the bully package, let the lady in, and then put the beat-up bully back in place. What I don’t get is this:

[blocks B     ] <gnome-base/control-center-2.22 (is blocking gnome-base/gnome-settings-daemon-2.22.1)
[blocks B     ] <gnome-base/gnome-applets-2.22.0 (is blocking dev-libs/libgweather-2.22.0)

By some feat of inprobability Gnome 2.22 must magically appeared already on my system. I’m thinking that this is a quirk in Portage as I don’t remember this happening before. Why are blocked packages necessary? Best I can figure is that a package has internal-checks for required packages during the build process and if earler versions are installed, the build process can fail. There’s a nice script and the gentoo wiki that make unblocking packages pretty simple.

Gnome Volume Manager Spam?

Gnome volume manager just seems to get worse. I’ve had gripes with GVM since my previous computer. GVM has a very unconsistent upgrade cycle. Bugs that get fixed in one rev will often return the next. Now it just gets bad. I was happy with my PPC version until this recent verison. When I insert my removable media GVM opens it in nautilus though I have selected it not to.

Also when I insert my removable media I now get this:

The disk is loaded fine but with further investigation:

$ ls -l /media/U3\ System
autorun.inf
LaunchPad.zip
LaunchU3.exe

It looks like there must be a a hidden partition on my flash drive that I haven’t been able to see before. Worse, there’s no way to turn it off or have it not show on the desktop. This is perfectly unacceptable and I might go back to 2.20 if portage lets me, I also might look into other options for automatic-mounting.

A Couple Early Observations

Nautilus and Gnome Main Menu are faster. This is likely to removing the esd use flag I had set in 2.20. Having system sounds are nice but I think esd is dead and never worked that well anyway. I hear pulse-audio is working on this. I would be nice to have the feedback menu-clicks like there are in Wesnoth.

The weather in the time applet is a nice addition.

It also has some degree of locality support.

Also with 2.22 if not already done, remember consolekit support. “sudo rc-update add consolekit default”.

I’m happy with Gnome 2.22. Seems to run every bit as good as Gnome 2.20 and better in some places. Good job with the update Gnome team, my 1999 machine still survives.

Wesnoth QC

I regularly get to play Wesnoth which is by far my favorite game for this computer. I have to say technically Wesnoth 1.4 is very well done, but the more I play it the more I’m left with that thought Calvin’s dad jibbed once, “Often the anticipation is better than the acutal event.” So far I’ve played a couple campaigns and I’m getting that Calvin “air let out” feeling. As high a caliber a game as Wesnoth is, the scene is set, the newpaper helmets adorned, the water-ballons ready… but where’s Suzy?

There are the flagships, Wesnoth’s mighty vessels like the original campaign, the Scepter of Fire and Under the Burning Suns yet no other campaign really comes to mind. Seven new campaigns were entered into Wesnoth 1.4. I have yet only tried three. But it isn’t the amazing Wesnoth open-source standard I’ve known so far. I expressed this to the developers in the Wesnoth Forums. For those that play regularly or any that have an opinion, I’d like to hear it.