Was all set to post a short HOWTO on getting a Realtek 8168 NIC working on openSUSE after Realtek released version 1.05 of their Linux driver which both builds and works. Was then trumped when I plugged in my ethernet cable and the card sprang to life using the r8169 module. Seems the openSUSE kernel packages were updated on November 15th and this included this update. See my message on the openSUSE list.

If you're using a version that's older than Factory/10.2, you may still need to compile the driver. In that case follow the link above and download the tarball. Unpack it and make sure you have the following packages installed:

• make
• kernel-source
• kernel-syms
• gcc

• make - This will build and install the module, which is why you need to be root already.
• depmod -a - This sets up all the module dependencies correctly.
• modprobe r1000 - This loads the module.

The problem is that, because it's not provided by openSUSE as part of the kernel package, you'll need to rebuild it (make clean && make && depmod -a) whenever the kernel is upgraded.

This is a test

Poker night tonight. A six-person £5 no-limit Texas Hold 'Em tournament with some guys from college. Hopefully it'll be a good night, especially since quite a few people have expressed interest in being in future games.

The glib2 issue is now in bugzilla.

The server that hosts my mail at home.rubberturnip.org.uk and my photo gallery will be offline for essential maintenance. All mail for all of our domains will be queued by our ISP.

If you need to get in touch, and you know the address, please use my GMail address in the meantime.

Update: It's back online again.

Rock on! Aaron's joined the GNOME:Community crowd, so the latest Banshee packages are in there now.

Testing Tomboy 0.5.0 packages in my home repo before updating the version in G:C.

Update: The Tomboy packages are now in G:C

So far have moved the following packages from my home repo to GNOME:Community:

• gnome-themes-extras
• mail-notification
• sensors-applet
• tomboy

This week, I'm doing a week-long module (which means it's pretty well full-time) on Chaplaincy with John Coyne - very interesting so far.

A morning spent wearing my openSUSE team hat. Been working on #216352. Also finally logged the gnome-blog.desktop bug (#219794).

The various GNOME projects on the Build Service are now in existence, so I'll be moving some packages to GNOME:Community real soon.

Well, there's been some discussion on the Build Service list about GNOME stuff and, since that's a matter of public record through the archives, I'm going to mention a few things that are happening/will happen.

Firstly, there will be two 'official' Build Service repos. These will be called GNOME:STABLE and GNOME:UNSTABLE. You can probably work out what will be contained within them. The core GNOME packages that are included in numbered distro releases go in here. STABLE contains the versions that are in the current stable GNOME release and UNSTABLE those which are in the current unstable release. We, the GNOME team, will maintain these

In addition to these there will be GNOME:Community. This will, finally, replace the old usr-local-bin repository that I run, hosted elsewhere. It will contain packages that are not, currently, part of the core distro package set. I'm guessing we're going to be open to other community packagers being added to this.

Since I keep getting hassled to produce my holiday write up, here it is at last:

We went to Italy.

It was good.

I liked it.

Wanted from the community: Suggestions of where the menu entry for the non-applet version of GNOME Blog should go.

Currently it resides in System/Desktop Applet, but this just seems plain wrong. It's not a system tool and it's not an applet (at least in the GNOME sense, I suppose if you take applet to mean small application then yes, it is one). So, where should it go?

My suggestions are: Utilities/Editor or Internet/Insert Category Here. Your choice, or a write-in nomination on a postcard (well, email) to the usual address please.

Fred: you will make sure you file these in bugzilla, won't you?

At the same time, this is a note to myself, when I have time I must file my niggly gnome-blog.desktop issue along with a patch.

America goes to the polls on Tuesday (well, most of it does anyway) and, unlike previous US elections, I've not really said much about it. Anyone who reads my blog knows what my key issues are. As a Christian, I believe the Iraq war not to be just. I believe in the easing of poverty (and that it is government's job to facilitate this). I believe that we are stewards of the earth and that we should do all we can to combat climate change. I believe that it is not the government's job to enforce the perceived morals of a vocal minority.

In short, I believe that the Democratic party is the right choice both for the American people and the world at large. It's looking positive, people of America: you can make it happen. Get out and vote on Tuesday. Vote Democrat!

This is the text of an email I received today:

Subject: Regarding your blog entry: Novell, M$ and the openSUSE project
Dear James,

I take the opportunity from this specific entry at your blog to say that despite being out of the Suse community a couple of years now I keep on reading your blog because I really appreciate the job you do for OSS all these years and it is always good to see some clear thinking at moments like this one.

Keep on the like this.

It turns out this is possible, but it requires some GConf-Fu!

1. Make sure you have the gconf-editor package installed
2. Open the following option from the Applications menu - System: Configuration: GNOME Configuration Editor
3. Navigate to /desktop/gnome/applications/main-menu/file-area
4. Edit the user_specified_apps key by double clicking on it. For example, if you want Evolution instead of F-Spot (WHY F-SPOT?!?!?!?), change the f-spot.desktop entry to evolution-2.8.desktop.

Update: Seems you can right-click on applications in the Application Browser (you get that by clicking "More Applications"

These are more musings on this subject, prompted by a short (so far) email discussion with a friend of mine at Novell (I'll not name the person in question, just to be on the safe side).

My biggest concern is that it implicitly says that there are patent issues that people need to be protected from. Once that is conceded then other Linux/FLOSS users are vulnerable to litigation and royalties now, and Novell customers are vulnerable once this agreement passes. The reason I say this is that courts, should it come to that, wouldn't care about in intricacies, they'll listen to the company with the most lawyers - guess who that would be.

The other thing is that these things don't happen overnight, negotiations toward this agreement must have been happening for months at least and that seems duplicitous to say the least.

At the moment I'm inclined to give the openSUSE project the benefit of the doubt, if not Novell. I will probably be calling for greater independence from Novell for the project this coming week such as its own Bugzilla etc (even if these things are hosted by Novell).

The bottom line in terms of the community is that, in all likelihood, Novell have blown whatever goodwill they have had in the space of a day. That's really sad for the community. They may also have signed their own death warrant - no-one has ever got into bed with Microsoft and come out in good shape - which is sad for most people connected with Novell, with the possible exception of their major share holders should it be a buy-out that sees their demise.

This makes me more than a little bit nervous. I just saw the news this morning - didn't get any tech news yesterday - so I've not looked deeply into it but phrases like "patent coverage" make me twitchy. If this agreement is in place until 2012, what happens in 2013? Remember software patents are bad, so any agreement that is based on them is tainted too.

Miguel has a list of links relating to the story.

Discussion on opensuse-factory regarding the removal of tiny-nvidia-installer from the distro. Ends up discussing the legal implications of shipping NVIDIA drivers. Incidentally, the current method of installing them is a RIGHT PAIN! Now, I'm able to use them, and that's fine, it's just an annoying delay when the kernel package is updated to have to reboot (have to do that anyway for the new kernel) and select runlevel 3. Then rebuild the drivers and enter runlevel 5. For a non-technical user, they're better off not having hardware acceleration and sticking to the nv driver.

If NVIDIA GPLed the drivers, they could either be integrated into the main kernel tree or legally patched in by distros.

Alternatively, if some intrepid kernel hackers (Greg?) were to attempt to write pukka GPL kernel drivers for NVIDIA cards, this could allow the nv driver to be extended. This would probably a seriously popular piece of code because NVIDIA chipsets are so prevalent in the market.