Gentoo: How-to unmerge KDE 3 packages if their KDE 4 versions exist

So you've merged KDE 4 versions of your favorite packages and want to remove the 3.5 versions...

Make sure you have installed portage-utils and run the following:

emerge -avC `qlist -C -I -D -v kde | grep 3.5 | sed 's/^/=/g'`

qlist finds the duplicates and lists them, then we use grep to keep only the 3.5 versions, which we then pass to emerge (with = in front of each one) to unmerge :)

you can also remove all of kde 3.5 with a similar command:

emerge -avC `qlist -C -I -v kde | grep 3.5 | sed 's/^/=/g'`

:)

Linux, EVE Online, Premium Content and Wine :)

Eve is a great game. Unfortunately, the client provided by CCP for linux doesn't include the new and much improved graphics.

Wine handles the game well though, allowing you to play with the Premium Content enabled :D

Steps to make it work:

Install wine

Run winecfg once, select Windows XP under "windows version"

Edit the file ~/.wine/user.reg and add the following lines:

[Software\\Wine\\Direct3D] 1223841454
"DirectDrawRenderer"="opengl"
"OffscreenRenderingMode"="fbo"
"PixelShaderMode"="enabled"
"VertexShaderMode"="hardware"

[Software\\Wine\\DllOverrides] 1223842291
"d3dx9_35"="native"
"d3dx9_36"="native"

Download the following two files and copy them to
~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/

d3dx9_35.dll
( http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?d3dx9_35 )
d3dx9_36.dll
( http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?d3dx9_36 )

cp d3dx9_35.dll ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/
cp d3dx9_36.dll ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/

Download the Arial font and copy it to ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/Fonts/

download http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?groupname=corefonts&filename=arial32.exe&use_mirror=ovh

Then extract it (u need cabextract)
cabextract arial.exe

and copy fonts
cp *TTF ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/Fonts/

Now you're ready to install/copy EVE.

To install, get the client and run "wine client.exe"
To copy, just put the CCP/EVE folder somewhere on your linux filesystem.

cp -R /mnt/win/Games/CCP /opt/games/

Finally, to run EVE, switch to the installed/copied folder
cd /opt/games/CCP/EVE/

and type
wine eve.exe

Enjoy :)

Gentoo: Updating all your 9999 packages

I needed a way to keep my kde-svn up-to-date.

Pretty simple actually:
emerge -av `eix -Jc | grep 9999 | cut -d" " -f2 | tr "\n" " "`

:)

Linux, Gentoo and Awesome Fonts

With Gentoo I finally have a linux setup that beats Windows in font display!

I just enabled the "bindist" USE flag and activated anti-aliasing by writing some options in /etc/fonts/local.conf and ~/.fonts.conf

this guide was really useful: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xorg_and_Fonts

The result?



=)

Gentoo Chronicles

I've been running Gentoo for the last 3 weeks :)

Its actually pretty cool. You get to know the complete in-and-outs of your system. Im definately more aware of each service running on my system now that I've configured each and every one I've activated. USE flags are also pretty cool since you get to decide what you want down to the tinny little detail.

You do need a good system to compile the packages quickly though. Don't try it on old machines!

Debian is still my favorite distro since everything works (tm) and I still use it on my MythTV box and my Workstation @ work, but gentoo is fun to fiddle with on my personal laptop :)

UPDATE:
Gentoo > *
:D

Debian 64bit, Iceweasel and Flash Plugin

Alrighty... I just installed Debian AMD64 on my new dell...

I was a bit worried about Iceweasel not working with flash properly, since everyone says you have to do this and do that to make it work.

I just ran

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

and everything worked out by itself!

So, no more hassle with the flash plugin in 64bit, debian takes care of it for ya! ;)

amsn 0.97b package with font anti-aliasing for debian

Debian added Tcl/Tk 8.5 in their unstable repos recently.

I took advantage of that and built a Tcl/Tk 8.5 version of the latest svn version of amsn (0.97b).

Download it and install it by typing the following commands:

sudo apt-get install tcl8.5 tk8.5
sudo dpkg -i amsn_0.97b_tcltk_8.5.deb

now you can try launching amsn

amsn &

finally, anti-aliased fonts ;)