If I write the articles in Indonesian, I will write a summary in English so that you can read my articles too. After you read the summary and you feel that you need more information about that, please do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail that can be found in my profile.
Finally, I had time to upgrade my laptop to the latest of slackware64-current, kernel 3.18.1, and AMD Catalyst Omega 14.501.1003 or 14.12. When upgrading to the newest AMD Catalyst Omega, I have got error message after compiling fglrx module. As usual, I checked my favorite reference, that is, Arch User Repository (AUR) for the patch. I modified the patch so that only one patch file is needed. You can download the patch from my Google Drive. You can follow the guidelines below to patch the fglrx module:
change directory to the path where the installer is
run the installer as root (superuser): # ./amd-driver-installer-14.501.1003-x86.x86_64.run
follow the instructions, at the end of installation process you will get notice that there are some errors.
Yesterday, I decided to upgrade the kernel from kernel tree of 3.12.x to 3.13.x and AMD Catalyst from 13.8-beta1 to 13.12. When I upgraded the AMD Catalyst, I got error message on compiling fglrx kernel module. As usual, I checked to Arch Linux for the patch and I found it. I used the information from it to modify the patch into one file only. You can download the modified patch from my Google Drive. Using this patch file, you can patch the fglrx module (of course, you have to install AMD Catalyst 13.12 first) as below (in case of using kernel-3.13.2. Just edit the number "3.13.2" for other kernel version):
change directory to the path where the installer is
run the installer as root (superuser): # ./amd-catalyst-13.12-linux-x86.x86_64.run
follow the instructions, at the end of installation process you will get notice that there are some errors.
Kernel 3.7.x is EOL now, replaced by 3.8.x as the latest stable kernel version. Because of this, I upgraded the kernel running on my laptop to 3.8.x (on the day I wrote this post, the newest version is 3.8.2). Of course, upgrading the kernel means recompiling the fglrx module. It means, this module need to be re-patched so that can work on kernel-3.8.x. As usual, I searched the patch from Arch Linux then used the information on that site to patch the fglrx module. You can download the complete patch from my Google Drive. Using this patch file, you can patch the fglrx module (by installing AMD Catalyst 13.1 first) as below (in case of using kernel-3.8.2. Just edit the number "3.8.2" for other kernel version):
change directory to the path where the installer is
It has been 5 months! I didn't upgrade the AMD Catalyst driver and also the kernel (I sticked with kernel 3.4.x). This week, I got time for upgrading the kernel to 3.7.x and also trying to install AMD Catalyst 12.10. As usual, the fglrx module of AMD Catalyst 12.10 could not be compiled smoothly because of incompatibilities between kernel 3.7.x and this fglrx module. Fortunately, I found the patch from arch linux (also as usual ... :) ... my favorite place for searching any patches) from this link then I make a little bit modification. You can download it from my google docs link.
How to patch?
I used the following steps to install AMD Catalyst-12.10 for kernel 3.7.1 (of course, you just change the kernel directory on these steps if your kernel version is not 3.7.1) and patch the fglrx module:
change directory to the path where the installer is
Last time, I have shared to you about how to activate right-click on clickpad by patching and recompiling the source of synaptics, at that time, synaptics version 1.4.0. Pat has upgraded the synaptics in Slackware- or Slackware64-current to version of 1.6.2. When I read the source of synaptics-1.6.2, I found that the click function of clickpad can be performed by clicking the clickpad using one, two, and three finger(s). I set the clickpad configuration for X-server, saved in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/clickpad.conf, as below:
By this configuration, I activate the behavior of click functions, vertical- and horizontal-scroll using two fingers, and also vertical-edge- and horizontal-edge-scroll that are very convinient for me. Click functions on my laptop can be performed such like this:
After the kernel-3.3.x has been terminated (EOL), I decided to move to kernel-3.4.x. Unfortunately, this moving was not so easy since fglrx module could not be compiled for the kernel-3.4.x, in other words, this module needs to be patched. Referring to two references that I have written below, I have got the patch and have successfully patched fglrx module of AMD Catalyst-12.4 and AMD Catalyst-12.6Beta. You can download the patch from this link or just copy-paste a few lines below to your favorite text editor and saving it to a file:
--- lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/firegl_public.c +++ lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/firegl_public.c.new @@ -4181,7 +4184,11 @@ static int kasInitExecutionLevels(unsigned long level_init) { unsigned int p; KCL_DEBUG5(FN_FIREGL_KAS, "%d\n", level_init); +#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(3,4,0) + for_each_possible_cpu(p) +#else for_each_cpu_mask(p, cpu_possible_map) +#endif { KCL_DEBUG1(FN_FIREGL_KAS,"Setting initial execution level for CPU # %d\n", p); preempt_disable();
When I compiled lilypond-2.15.36, I found this error:
cat out/feta-braces-a.otf-table out/feta-braces-b.otf-table out/feta-braces-c.otf-table out/feta-braces-d.otf-table out/feta-braces-e.otf-table out/feta-braces-f.otf-table out/feta-braces-g.otf-table out/feta-braces-h.otf-table out/feta-braces-i.otf-table > out/emmentaler-brace.otf-table echo '(design_size . 20)' > out/emmentaler-brace.otf-gtable echo feta-braces-d feta-braces-c feta-braces-i feta-braces-e feta-braces-h feta-braces-a feta-braces-g feta-braces-f feta-braces-b > out/emmentaler-brace.subfonts printf 'emmentaler-brace' > out/emmentaler-brace.fontname cd ./out && /usr/bin/fontforge -script emmentaler-11.pe Copyright (c) 2000-2011 by George Williams. Executable based on sources from 13:48 GMT 22-Feb-2011-ML-TtfDb. Library based on sources from 13:48 GMT 22-Feb-2011. Cannot open /usr/local/src/Music/lilypond-2.15.36/build/mf/out/feta11.pfb The requested file, feta11.pfb, does not exist MergeFonts: Can't find font: feta11.pfb Called from... emmentaler-11.pe: line 17 make[1]: *** [out/emmentaler-11.svg] Error 1 make[1]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs.....
This error is caused by the use of -jN option when compiling lilypond (I used this instruction: make -j4 all). I used that option in order to maximize CPU cores utilization, however, this option can lead the compilation process into race condition. In the case of lilypond compilation, feta11.pfb is needed by one of compilation thread/stream before other thread/stream compiles it. When I omitted the -jN option, the compilation was successful.
In conclusion, be careful when we use the -jN option. This option can make the compilation process faster because the compilation process uses more than one CPU core, however, the race condition can occur in some cases.
I just upgraded the kernel to 3.3.1 (my own compilation) then tried to recompile the fglrx modules for this new kernel. No problem in compilation, as well as in use. I have tried AMD Catalyst 12.2 and 12.3, both are no problem on my system with kernel 3.3.1. If you want to upgrade your kernel to 3.3.1 and AMD Catalyst 12.2 or 12.3, you can upgrade them ... without problem, hopefully.
Yesterday, I found that the kernel and ATI Catalyst driver have been updated since August 17, so that, I decided to spend my time for testing them, then use them if there is no problem. Since a few hours ago, the new kernel 3.0.3 and ATI Catalyst has been running smoothly on my laptop. I have tested 2 versions of ATI Catalyst, those are, 10.12 and 11.8.
ATI Catalyst 11.8 (without patch)
This version has been installed without problem and without any single line's patch. My suggestion, use xorg.conf from aticonfig --initial for avoiding any problem (see my previous post), especially if you want to use Desktop Effects.
ATI Catalyst 10.12 (with patch)
I have tried this version on kernel 3.0.3 and it has been running smoothly without problem, however, it need to be patched. For patching ATI Catalyst 10.12, please read my previous post. You can find the link for downloading the patch on that post.
That's all.
Note: for my other posts about ATI Catalyst, go to this link. You may need to read it.
Since yesterday, I have tried to run the Linux kernel 3.0.1 on my laptop; everything is good, no problem so far. Next step, I tested the ATI Catalyst 11.7, without patching. After installation, everything is running well including fglrx kernel module and the driver for x server. However, I still have the "old" problem that always occurs when I install ATI Catalyst 11.x, that is, I cannot activate OpenGLOverlay so that the Desktop Effects (compiz) cannot be launched. Therefore, any version of 11.x can be installed as long as the OpenGLOverlay is disabled (see the option below).
Now, I am using ATI Catalyst 10.12 with OpenGLOverlay enabled (see the option below) so that I can activate the Desktop Effects since this version does not have problem with OpenGLOverlay. Of course, I have to patch it first. I use the patch that I have written about two months ago (here). So far so good, I can activate the Desktop Effects again.
My note: Although I have problem with Desktop Effects when I use ATI Catalyst 11.7, My colleague, Widya Walesa, can activate the Desktop Effects when using 11.7; you can read it on his blog. I still don't know what the cause of my problem is.
Note: for my other posts about ATI Catalyst, go to this link. You may need to read it.
After upgrading to KDE-4.7.0, I feel that Nepomuk and Akonadi are very annoying. I always get notification about Nepomuk and some messages about Akonadi when I quit from KDE. Since I don't use Desktop Search and KMail anymore, I have decided to turn Nepomuk and Akonadi off.
Disabling Nepomuk
I follow these steps to disable Nepomuk:
Go to System Settings --> Workspace Appearance and Behavior --> Desktop Search
Untick "Enable Strigi Desktop File Indexer" and "Enable Nepomuk Semantic Desktop" under Basic Setting Tab
Choose "Ignore all removable media" on Removable media handling and also make sure all folders are left unticked in "Customize index folders ..." under Desktop Query Tab
Select "Disable Automatic Backups" on Backup frequency under Backup Tab
Go to System Settings --> Common Appearance and Behavior --> Application and System Notifications --> Manage Notifications
Under Applications Tab, select "Desktop Search" on Event source and make sure all states are empty
Do the same for "Nepomuk file watch service" and "Semantic Desktop" on Event source
Quit System Settings
Disabling Akonadi
For disabling Akonadi, open the terminal then enter the directory ~/.config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc and set the value of "StartServer" on [QMYSQL] to false.
[QMYSQL]
...
StartServer=false
After finishing all steps described above, restart the KDE. Nepomuk and Akonadi have been disabled.
Note: I configure my System Settings to Classic Tree View (see picture below).
This morning, I got information from Deddy through Google+ about Oxygen KDE. I give it a try ... awesome ... I like it so much! So far, there is no problem after installing it. For KDE users that use firefox as web browser, I suggest you to try this theme.
I have patched the source of kdeutils-4.6.5 since there are problems on KCalc (see this link and this link). You can download the slackbuild script, patches, and the source of kdeutils-4.6.5 from this link. Before compiling yourself, make sure you have upgraded your KDE to KDE-4.6.5 using Eric's packages. Next, uncompress kdeutils-4.6.5_SlackBuild.tar.gz and run the KDE.SlackBuild as root. This slackbuild script will compile kdeutils-4.6.5 then upgrade your previous one.
For Slackware64 users, you don't need to compile; just download the binary package from this link, then do upgradepkg.
Updated: I have renewed all links for the patch. If you still have problem with the link, do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you for all you that have informed me about this link problem.
Again, we need to patch the source code of fglrx kernel module, part of ATI Catalyst (you will find it on /lib/modules/fglrx after installation), for kernel 2.6.39.x since there are some changes on the kernel. On this post, I will show how to patch ATI Catalyst 11.x (tested on 11.5) and 10.10 - 10.12 (tested on 10.12) so that it works on 2.6.39.x (tested on 2.6.39.1).
Next step, execute ./make.sh and if there is no error, change directory to /lib/modules/fglrx then execute ./make_install.sh
ATI Catalyst 10.10 - 10.12
You have to download this patch: fglrx_10.10-12_with_2.6.39.x.patch. Copy this file to /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod then execute: patch -p1 < fglrx_10.10-12_with_2.6.39.x.patch
After that, execute ./make.sh and if there is no error, change current working directory to /lib/modules/fglrx then execute ./make_install.sh
Happy patching!
Note: for my other posts about ATI Catalyst, go to this link. You may need to read it.
Since my laptop has clickpad that has larger area and more sensitive than common touchpad, I get an annoying behavior of my clickpad; when I type and my thumb or palm accidentally touches or near the clickpad, the cursor will be moved to the position that is pointed by mouse pointer, so that, I will continue to type in the wrong position! I hate this behavior! I have to disable my clickpad when I am typing. There are two methods:
Method 1, I disable my clickpad permanently. I run this script to toggle on/off my clickpad:
#!/bin/bash
#Toggle touchpad
SYNSTATE=$(synclient -l | grep TouchpadOff | awk '{ print $3}')
# change state
if [ $SYNSTATE = 0 ]; then
synclient touchpadoff=1
elif [ $SYNSTATE = 1 ]; then
synclient touchpadoff=0
fi
Method 2, I use /usr/bin/syndaemon to disable my clickpad only when I am typing. The steps:
Make ~/.xprofile
#!/bin/sh # Customize X environment # # Activate syndaemon for monitoring keyboard activity and disabling # the touchpad when the keyboard is being used. /usr/bin/syndaemon -td
Add these lines on the top of /usr/bin/startkde (if you use KDE as the default desktop manager) in order to make X server executes ~/.xprofile when it starts.
if [ -r /etc/xprofile ]; then source /etc/xprofile fi if [ -r $HOME/.xprofile ]; then source $HOME/.xprofile fi
Restart X server.
Currently, I use method 2 because I only disable my clickpad temporarily when syndaemon detects keyboard action and resume my clickpad function within 2 seconds after the last key pressed. For more information about syndaemon, type: man syndaemon on your console.
Last month, I have written about how to activate right-click function on clickpad by patching synaptics-1.3.0. In this page, I will show you how to patch synaptics-1.4.0 so that you can use right-click function (also, middle-click). The patch is patch for synaptics-1.3.0 with a few changes. For the modified patch, you can download it from here (gzip compressed). You can follow the instructions from my last note; just change the step 3 with this: copy this file to path-to/x11/patch/ (in my case, copy it to /home/henry/rsync/x11/patch/). The rest will be same. I also put my clickpad.conf on google docs so that you can download it and place it in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ then restart the X server.
If you want to use ATI Catalyst Proprietary Display Driver 10.12 on your PC/Laptop that running kernel 2.6.38, you will get error because the installer cannot create fglrx kernel module. You need to patch ATI Catalyst kernel module before you compile it manually. Here is the patch:
write: ip_firegl_write,
@@ -840,7 +840,12 @@ static int fglrx_pci_suspend(struct pci_
* happen much less frequent then without this workaround.
*/
if (state == PM_EVENT_SUSPEND)
+#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,38)
+ console_lock();
+#else
acquire_console_sem();
+#endif
+
if (firegl_cail_powerdown(privdev, state))
ret = -EIO;
@@ -862,7 +867,11 @@ static int fglrx_pci_suspend(struct pci_
}
#ifdef FIREGL_USWC_SUPPORT
// Restore the PAT after resuming from S3 or S4.
@@ -911,7 +924,11 @@ static int fglrx_pci_resume(struct pci_d
firegl_cail_powerup(privdev);
Someone asked me: how to make dmesg output is not truncated. The answer is make the buffer log size bigger. How? As far as I know, there are two ways to raise the buffer log size:
Pass the parameter of log_buf_len=n to kernel, where n is a power of two number (n = 2^x). The default for slackware is 2^15 or 32768 (32k). You can change n to 65536 (2^16) or 131072 (2^17). In this way, you don't need to recompile your current kernel.
Compile or recompile your kernel. Before you compile the kernel yourself or recompile it yourself, you have to change the kernel parameter in General Setup > Kernel log buffer size (see figure) to 16 (65536) or 17 (131072). After compilation, don't forget to copy kernel image, config, and System.map into /boot directory and set up your bootloader (lilo/grub) properly.
Choose one of them then you will get full dmesg output on your screen. It will be very long message log.
When I monitored ATI Catalyst driver website for Linux, the last driver version is 11.2 (15 Feb 2011). However, when I tried to install it on my laptop (ATI Mobility Radeon HD5400 series, my own compilation of kernel 2.6.37.2, & Xorg-server 1.9.4 from slackware64-current), the x server crashed. This happened also when I tried to install 11.1 version. Therefore, I have to draw back to the 10.12 version and it runs smoothly on my laptop. Since this version is very stable, I suggest, it's better if you stay on 10.12 version until AMD releases the new version.
Note: If you want to install the 10.12 version, you will need to patch the kernel module of ATI Catalyst using this patch for 2.6.37.x or this patch for 2.6.36.x. You don't need to this patch if you are using 2.6.35.x. Also, the 11.x version of ATI Catalyst doesn't need this patch.
From console (run in text mode, make sure to this as root and the installer are executable), enter the directory where the installer is then run: ./ati-driver-installer-10-12-x86.x86_64.run --install
Follow the instructions.
When done, enter to /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/
copy the patch to this directory then run: patch -p0 < fglrx_10.10-12_with_2.6.XX.x.diff (note that XX is 36 or 37, depends on your kernel version).
run: ./make.sh
if there is no error, go up to one level (/lib/modules/fglrx/) then do: ./make_install.sh
reboot your system
use aticonfig --initial to create /etc/X11/xorg.conf then make necessary changes on it. My suggestion, it's better if you move and rename that xorg.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/fglrx.conf
start your x server
Test your display, activate desktop effect, or whatever you want.
Finally, I can use the right-click of the clickpad on my laptop (HP Pavilion dv3-4036TX). Clickpad is differ from touchpad, those are, it is larger than touchpad and it doesn't have physical buttons for left- and right-click (see picture below and click here for more detail).
Because of this construction, if we use common driver (synaptics) on linux, you cannot use right-click function, in other word, when you click on both left and right bottom side of clickpad, you will get left-click function only.
If you want to activate right-click function, you have to patch the xf86-input-synaptics driver. You can download the patch from this site. How to patch? Follow the steps below:
Download the source of x11 (the whole directory tree) from Slackware site. It's better if you use rsync command for downloading it. In my case, I use: rsync -avP rsync.osuosl.org::slackware/slackware64-current/source/x/x11 /home/henry/rsync/
Copy the patch to path-to/x11/patch/xf86-input-synaptics/. In my case, I copy it to /home/henry/rsync/x11/patch/xf86-input-synaptics/.
Add this line: patch -p1 < $CWD/patch/xf86-input-synaptics/synaptics-clickpad-support.patch --verbose || { touch ${SLACK_X_BUILD_DIR}/${PKGNAME}.failed ; continue ; } to path-to/x11/patch/xf86-input-synaptics.patch then save it. In my case, I add that line to /home/henry/rsync/x11/patch/xf86-input-synaptics.patch file.
Run the slackbuild script exactly like this: ./x11.slackbuild driver xf86-input-synaptics
You will get new slackware package of xf86-input-synaptics for your clickpad. Afterward, upgrade the existing xf86-input-synaptics with the new one using upgradepkg.
Make new file (you can name it freely) in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ (in my case: /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/clickpad.conf), then write these lines in the file then save it:
Restart X server, then enjoy your "right-click function" of clickpad if you click the right bottom area of clickpad. In addition, if you click the middle bottom area of clickpad, you will get "middle-button function".
