Freetds on Arch Linux

今天把一个在ubuntu服务器上运行得很好的报表程序拖回到我的Arch Linux上发现运行不了，pymssql报错，首先以为是pymssql的问题，重新编译了还是不行，怀疑是freetds的问题，以为是更新了gcc和glibc造成问题，遂重新编译了freetds，用tsql测试也不行。问题就应该是出在freetds上了.仔细看了freetds的文档，知道了freetds默认的协议版本是5.0,可以在编译时通过--with-tdsver指定，也可以通过freetds.conf或者环境变量$TDSVER设置。我连接的是sql server 2000，TDSVER设置到8.0，果然好了。看来用Arch Linux还是等多动个心眼。

注意Arch Linux服务的启动顺序

Arch Linux的启动脚本设计得非常简单，也很有意思，所有的配置在全部在rc.conf里面做了，在设置上没有传统Linux的启动分级的概念了，这点比gentoo还简化了，gentoo虽然做了简化，但也还分了boot和default。还有就是Arch Linux启动脚本的顺序需要你在rc.conf里面做好，它按照你在DAEMONS里面写的顺序启动，而不是像传统的Linux一样通过在脚本前面加数字前缀来决定启动顺序的，这点如果不注意的话容易造成问题。我们通常习惯一直在DEAMONS后面加下去，而不是自己知道这个顺序。我自己就由于添加了解服务CUPS放在GDM后面启动了，所以造成启动后，窗口上有个黑点去不掉，想来想去就是这点改动了，调了一下顺序就好了。所以以后千万要主义了，还好这些是没有关联的服务，对于有严格顺序的关联服务如果不注意就可能启动不了。

我是越来越喜欢这个Linux，从Ubuntu转过来，确实花了不少时间，很多的配置都是参照Ubutnu做的，比如字体配置，hal磁盘挂载，真是应了一句话“用Ubuntu的人用了Arch，才知道Arch比Ubuntu确实快不少；用Arch的人用Ubutnu，才知道Ubuntu帮我们做了多少不简单的事”。原来担心它的软件没有ubuntu库里面多，但是AUR里面基本上什么都包含了，不过很多没有跟随着更新，还好Arch的ABS机制很简单，所以自己修改一下PKGBUILD也就没有问题了。这里提几个我自己遇到的，配置打印机时，HP larserJet 1000要用到的foo2zjs,PKGBUILD中md5sum错了，要改了才能继续编译,splashy的依赖错了，要自己改到directfb-1.2,具体要改splashy.initcpio_install，还有一个zlib的问题，arch中libz.so放在/usr/lib/而不是/lib中，也需要在上面文件中改一下。

Quick Arch Configuration Note

There are some steps to make Arch Linux work better for you:
----------------------------
#locale
(1) Edit /etc/locale.gen to enable the locales you need
(2) run locale-gen as root to generate locales
#fontconfig
(1) install the required TTF fonts
(2) edit /etc/fonts/local.conf, add your favorite settings
(3) edit java fontconfig setting in /opt/java/jre/lib/fontconfig.properties
#disk mount in GUI
add youself to the storage, optical group
#solve the Chinese problem of USB disk mount
add iocharset=utf8 in the gconf-/system/storage/default-options/vfat
#alsa config
(1) alsactl store to save the alsa setting
(2) add alsa to the rc.conf daemon section
#HAL configuration
#config HAL to only automount removable disks
#file /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvender/ignore-fixed-drivers.fdi
<device>
<match key="storage.hotpluggable" bool="false">
<match key="storage.removable" bool="false">
<merge key="storage.automount_enabled_hint" type="bool">false</merge>
</match>
</match>
</device>

使用Gentoo2008作为系统维护盘

以前一直习惯使用Gentoo作为系统维护盘，不管是Linux还是Windows维护，不管是修复系统还是备份数据。但是以前的Gentoo Live CD不可以操作NTFS分区，所以遇到XP系统等使用NTFS分区的系统就无能为力了。我期间使用过Ubuntu，Puppy Linux代替过。但是总是觉得不爽，Ubuntu启动到桌面太久了，Puppy Linux有的时候会遇到兼容性的问题，有些电脑启动不起来，也挂不了硬盘。今天帮朋友恢复装Vista SP1损坏的系统，他用的HP的机器，所有的数据都默认在C盘了，System Restore没有作用，还原点不能用，只有可能恢复到出厂模式，但是这样就必须先把C盘上的数据先导出来。首先还是尝试了手头上就有的Ubuntu Desktop CD，但是太慢，简直不可接受。好久没有关注Gentoo的动态了，从网站上一查，得知Gentoo 2008 Live CD已经支持了NTFS读写了，太爽了。又可以用熟悉的Gentoo做系统恢复盘了。并且由于不要图形界面，可以节省大量的内存，所以拷贝文件比Ubuntu快多了，实在是救了我，他有120G的数据需要备份出来，看来我这次等帮他重新分一下区才可以。否则，下次，最好是没有下次了，简直太难受了。这么多数据，我的移动硬盘一个区只有40G，老鼠搬家了3次才把数据转移完。

The new life with Arch

Arch linux is good for me, the bigest advantage of Arch Linux is that, it can upgrade the system to another version very smoothly, just like gentoo. I really love gentoo, but the compilation is painful.
Here is my software list:
Gnome - the desktop environment
openoffice - for the office application
gnome-terminal - a muti-language terminal emulator
file-roller - the GUI frontend of zip and unzip
audacious - it can support chinese mp3 tag
totem-xine - for videos and movies
Brasero - the CD burner
Firefox - the browser
Filezilla - the FTP client
FreeMind - the mind map tool
ArgoUML - the UML drawing tool
Komodo Edit 4 - the web development
gThumb - the picture management tool
GIMP - the *photoshop* of linux
LinuxQQ - realesed in 2008.7.31, by Tencent, this is the first offical Linux QQ
Emesene - I think it's the best MSN client in gnome.
Acroread - the PDF viewer from Adobe, but it cann't be found in Arch's repositories, I have to create this package by myself.
-----
Thanks to all the bright programers who created these wonderful programs.

Tryed the KDE for a while and I am back to Gnome again

To the KDE users: This post is just based on my experience, may be I am not very familiar with the KDE, so please keep calm :)

Since I have been a Linux user, Gnome is always the desktop evironment of my computer, the exception is on one of my old machine, I use fvwm instead. That's not suprise, because gnome is the defaut desktop evrionment of most of big linux distributions, including Red hat, Ubuntu. Red Hat is the first linux system on my computer, about 5 years ago, and then I have used gentoo as my desktop system for about 3 years, and after graduation I used ubuntu.

Gnome is always the default desktop environment, so I never thought about to make some changes, or dedicate some of my time to another desktop environment, I mean KDE, even I known it since I tasted linux at the first bite. I even have ever tried KDE sevral times, but every time just for a glance or "play with". When I have to get start to work, I restart the GDM and enter my familiar environment - Gnome.

I tried Arch linux this week, because I want to install it to my laptop, whose CPU is not so fast. KDE4 is out, as they say, KDE4 is a great gift to the opensource community, So I think I should give me a change to try it. Anywhere, I just want to only one desktop environment installed. I tried KDE first, it beautiful, I thought I would love it. "The desktop of 21 centry", ah ha, now I have it.

But one day later, I changed my mind, because I found some problem which is rather important for me.I am a java programer, In most of my work time, I use eclipse, netbeans and some other java (develop) programs, freemind, argouml, etc. In gnome, I can get a native look and feel when I use these java programs, but in KDE, they only show the strange face to me, the java look and feel. As for as I know, in the java world, for linux, gtk is the only supported GUI lib. if you use SWT based programers you still can get a beatiful look and feel from GTK, if you have configurated the GTKRC, but with Swing, you can only get the strange java look and feel, that makes me feel uncomfortable. For the KDE4, I think it still need time to be really mature, there are so many KDE applications only available for the KDE3, e.g., I want use KMyMoney for my finance management, but it's not available for the KDE4 at this stage. I will not try to use KDE3 now, I found in KDE, the Chinese characters are not renderd clearly engough just as in Gnome.

Finally, after some carefully consideration, I decided to back to Gnome.

知音无，弦弹断，谁人听

孤独，这种感觉快要把我吞噬掉。出差回来，本来高兴的发短信跟GF说我可能获取的一次机会，然而并不被理解。她有时候幼稚天真得让我觉得无奈。心烦意乱，正是午夜，飙条短信给唯一可以开口说些私事的朋友，去被告知她在黄山旅游。孤独，这时唯一的感觉。