Last 5 Posts from 2006/February

Today I did update my Gentoo to KDE-3.5.1, it really worth the compile time :-) It's much more polished than 3.4.3, nice integration with HAL

, more optimizations and nice improvements to some apps, I just tested Kopete so far and it was great.

Then I tried to little applications: Katapult and Yakuake.

The first is a nice application that have no main screen, it stay invisible until you press Alt+Space, then it shows a semi-transparent centered that show documents, applications or other catalog data as you type. For example, if you type 1+2 it will use the Calculator catalog and show the result. If you type amarok it will use the Application Launcher catalog and if you hit Enter, it will open it. You can also browse the bookmarks and other stuff. More catalogs will come since Ubuntu guys are maintaining it.

The second is another application without a main screen, when you hit F12 a konsole KPart will show from the top edge like Quake games do. You can use other skins, just browse kde-look, and you can right-click the background to change terminal color and also make it semi-transparent! It will hide as soon as it loose focus, but F12 brings it again in the same state!

I'm entering the bluetooth world, just bought a usb-bluetooth dongle (lsusb: Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle) and a headset Motorola HS801.

I could set it up to work with GNU/Linux, but it was not that easy, so here follows the instructions:

1. You will need an ALSA kernel module called snd-bt-sco, it's not in kernel tree yet and most distros doesn't ship it, so get it from here: http://bluetooth-alsa.sourceforge.net/ I'm using version 0.41 without glitches. Gentoo users could use ebuilds from bug report #91558.
2. Load the ALSA-Bluetooth module: modprobe snd-bt-sco.
3. If you want to use Skype or other applications that doesn't support ALSA, just OSS, use the OSS emulation layer, with /etc/modules.d/alsa:

   alias snd-card-1 snd-bt-sco
   alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
   
   alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss
   alias sound-service-1-1 snd-seq-oss
   alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss
   alias sound-service-1-8 snd-seq-oss
   alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss
   
   # Set this to the correct number of cards.
   options snd cards_limit=2

   I also use aoss with some applications, so I have in /etc/asound.conf:

   pcm.dsp1 {
   type plug
   slave.pcm "snd_headset"
   }
   
   ctl.dsp1 {
   type plug
   slave.pcm "snd_headset"
   }
   
   ctl.mixer1 {
   type plug
   slave.pcm "snd_headset"
   }

4. Then pair your device with your computer, I have set up /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf with:

   options {
   autoinit yes;
   security auto;
   pairing multi;
   pin_helper /usr/lib/kdebluetooth/kbluepin;
   }

   Then KDE will prompt me with a nice GUI to enter device's PIN.
5. Manual test before continue: discover your device hardware address using hcitool scan and then run the btsco daemon manually: btsco -v $HWADDR, then play some sound to it using ALSA play: aplay -d plughw:Headset /path/to/sound.wav, if it doesn't work, then you need to check previous steps!
6. If everyting was right, then you could use some tool to automatically start btsco. I use KDE bluetooth daemon (kbluetoothd): Right-click the systray icon and choose Configuration/Configure Services..., then Device Discovery, add a new job called Headset and enable it, then choose Listed devices only and Add device, choose pooling times about 30 seconds and click Configure, enter this script there.

You can use this wiki as base, it's a Gentoo-wiki, but it's well written and you can understand the concepts and use it in other distros: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_use_a_bluetooth_headset

Now I'm back from LinuxConf.AU and trying to fix things up so I can move to my new job at INdT.

I've uploaded my photos to http://fotos.gustavobarbieri.com.br/LinuxConf-AU-2006

Also, I have my Bungy Jump movies at http://www.gustavobarbieri.com.br/videos/bungy_jump/aj_hacket-nz/.

I've bought some nice electronics like a PlayStation2 (and I want to run Linux on it!) and also a bluetooth headset and usb-dongle, so you may expect some posts about these things in near future... just after I move to Recife and have a normal life again.