Niels Horn's Blog

The official collection of Lego parts from LDraw was updated this week.

This collection of “virtual” pieces is used by programs as LDView, ldglite and l3p.
The leocad program uses its own “pieces” library, but is usually updated right after the LDraw parts library.

I updated the scripts for both packages and submitted the results to SlackBuilds.org, where they are waiting for approval.
In the mean time, you can get the script or the pre-built packages from my site.

Nagios 3.3.1 was released a few days ago and since it is a program I like a lot, I immediately started working on the updated SlackBuild script.

What is new
The complete ChangeLog for version 3.3.1 can be found here. Basically, it contains several improvements and bug-fixes “under the hood”, but it also has some new enhancements “on the outside”:

• A new and refreshing “exfoliation” theme
• The documentation link now goes to the on-line docs, always showing the newest information
• The “home” page shows links to current events from Nagios

What it looks like
Well, here are just two simple screenshots from Nagios running on my home network…

This is the new “home” screen of Nagios:

And this is the new “Tactical overview” (yes, I have 13 hosts at home):

Where to get it
As always, the new script has been submitted to SlackBuilds.org and the pre-built packages are available on my site.

I received two different reports over the last few days that version 2.31 of Transmission was causing segmentation faults and that the new 2.33 version solved this.

Although I use Transmission all the time, I never experienced this problem. But, since updating to 2.33 solves this for others, I updated my SlackBuild and submitted the new version.
The script is in the “pending” queue of SlackBuilds.org and the pre-built packages can be downloaded from my site.

Another version of LibreOffice was released recently, 3.4.1.

When I first “created” the SlackBuild for LibreOffice (I actually adapted rworkman’s OpenOffice.org script with his permission) it was because I was convinced that it would substitute OpenOffice.org eventually, as “open source” and “Oracle” did not sound like a happy marriage. And it seems that I was right, as the future of OpenOffice.org is at least doubtful, with Oracle trying to dump it at the Apache Foundation, but that causes some serious license or at least philosophical conflicts. At best, OO.o’s future looks “murky”. I also think the future of Java looks very complicated as long as Oracle is involved, but that’s a whole other story…

Back to the LibreOffice SlackBuild.

It (the script) is a bit of a messy hack to transform the pre-compiled packages into Slackware packages so that they can be maintained and installed or upgraded using the standard Slackware tools, like “installpkg” and “upgradepkg”. It does not really “build” the software, like AlienBOB’s script does. If you want to build LibreOffice from source, and have the resources (=hardware), expertise and patience (=couple of hours) to do so, get his script and give it a try. This might really give you a better and faster LibreOffice, but be warned: this is not for everyone. So, with the idea of serving a larger audience, I’ll keep maintaining my own script, so that everyone searching for a solution at slackbuilds.org or using sbopkg can “build” a LibreOffice Slackware package in just a couple of minutes.

And then I started to receive feedback.

I already maintained quite a few SlackBuild scripts – some more popular than others. But I never received so many e-mails as I have received about LibreOffice… And when a new version is released, I have a problem. Because the download link to the “source” gets broken, as it is moved to the “old” directory on their server.
I do respond to every message I receive, but I also have a full-time job (writing SlackBuild scripts does not pay the bills) so an answer might take a few days. And with all the new releases of LibreOffice, I have been receiving *lots* of e-mails complaining that the link to the source is “broken”. So here is a little explanation on what to do when a new version is released:

1. Get the previous sources from the “old” directory

The Document Foundation keeps previous versions of LibreOffice available for download. But only previous versions, so I cannot link to them when they’re still current. You can download these previous versions from here. Just pick the version you want (and which the SlackBuild was written for), pick “rpm” and the architecture you need (”x86″ for 32-bits and “x86_64″ for 64-bits). There you will find the “install-rpm” files needed to build the previous release.

2. Get the latest sources and try to use them

With the latest version of my SlackBuild script, you might be able to build the newer version. I tried to make it as flexible as possible, but the folks that package the LibreOffice binaries have changed the naming scheme and package structure a few times in the past, so I cannot guarantee that it will work. But it’s worth a try.

Having said all this, I submitted today the new scripts for LibreOffice and for the latest language packs.
As always, if you can’t wait for the scripts to be approved by the SlackBuilds admins, you can get the pre-built packages (or just the SlackBuild script) from my site.

Exactly a year after the precious version, 3.17.0 of DeVeDe was released.

The release statement tells us that the following items were added / fixed:

• Fixed a bug in MKISOFS, when it shows decimals with a comma instead of a dot
• Defines the VIDEO_FORMAT environment variable, needed in current SPUMUX versions
• Added bugfix AC3_FIX for current MENCODER versions
• Other little bugfixes

I submitted an updated SlackBuild to SlackBuilds.org and put up the new packages on my site.

Another update that was long over due… LeoCAD 0.75.2 is out, and the pieces library has grown from 3.934 to 4.351 pieces!

The 0.75.2 release mainly resolves some bugs and crashes, but it needs the newer pieces library to work, so do update both packages!

I already submitted the new SlackBuild scripts and the pre-built packages can be downloaded from my site.

Yes, I’ve been too busy lately to announce all new packages on my blog, but I do try to update most of them when new versions come out.

Today I updated the transmission package, for which version 2.31 was released recently. It adds a few interesting enhancements (like trying to download the scarcest pieces first) and tweaks. For a complete list of changes see this page.

The updated SlackBuild has been submitted to SlackBuilds.org and the pre-built packages are available on my site.

Stay tuned for more updates

I’ve been quite absent over the last few weeks, simply because of lack of time. I recently moved to a new house – or should I say “old” house? This house was originally built in 1938… That’s even older than I am!
Up to now it has been an exciting experience, especially since I like to fix things on my own – I’m acting as an electrician, locksmith, plumber, painter, interior designer, etc… I have lost more than five kilos in the process, as the days have been long and the nights short. But it was worth all the trouble until now!

Well, in the mean time, Slackware 13.37, the “Elite” edition, was released on April 25th. I tried to help as much as possible as one of the SlackBuilds.org staff, doing what I like most: investigating things that did not work and write patches for programs. The result is that – with a huge effort from all the SlackBuilds.org admins, we had a working repository of > 2.600 scripts when 13.37 came out!

When 13.37 was officially released, I was still installing the network in my new / old house. But I set up a few wireless access points I had to get my laptop and netbook on-line with my new 15Mb internet connection. I’m still installing the 1Gb cabling, as it took some time to find the drill to get through these very solid brick walls As you might imagine, I’m sort of a “geek”, so my network has about 10 systems running simultaneously here at home…
But I had the task of building all the packages of the script I maintain on Slackuilds.org on a clean 13.37 system to put them on my site. This took a couple of nights, but they are all ready now and have been uploaded. Well, at least for Slackware and Slackware64. The packages for ARMedslack will have to wait until I can find my external USB drive I put in a box before moving…
But, almost all packages have been built and uploaded for i486 and x86_64 architectures. Only one did not survive: inadyn. It seems that project is dead. But there is a good alternative: ddclient. I recently took over maintenance of that script and it works quite well.

To check out all the packages I built, go to my site.

After some requests I received, I updated two of my packages for the latest versions:

• BRL-CAD – updated for version 7.18.2
• viewvc – updated for version 1.1.10

BRL-CAD now has a working version of Archer, user-friendly interface to mged.

viewvc 1.1.10 fixes some bugs.

The new packages can be found on my site.

LibreOffice 3.3.2 has been released officially and I prepared the usual packages for Slackware 32- & 64 bits.

I put them in my Slackware 13.37 repository, but they should work just as fine on Slackware 13.1, as these are repackaged from the original binaries built by the Document Foundation.

Feel free to download the pre-built packages or the SlackBuild script from my site.