$ lsusb | grep -i upek
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 147e:1001 Upek

I’m running 64-bit multilib Gentoo Linux with KDE 4.8.1 on this laptop. I decided it was about time I got the built-in fingerprint scanner/sensor working.

The FOSS application Fingerprint GUI caters for this model of fingerprint reader, as well as several other models: see the application’s Home Page (Ref. 1 at the end of this post) for a list of the models supported.

The Gentoo Bugzilla has a bug report (Ref. 2) that I found very helpful (my thanks, in particular, go to Jan Buecken), but the ebuilds in it were not for the latest version of Fingerprint GUI, which is 1.04 as I write this. The required packages are sys-auth/fingerprint-gui and sys-auth/upekbsapi-bin. So I had to modify a little the ebuilds from the Gentoo Bugzilla, and I installed the packages using a Portage local overlay as explained below (/etc/make.conf had already been edited accordingly and /usr/local/portage/profiles/repo_name had already been created).

1. First I created the local overlay directories for the two packages:

# mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/sys-auth/fingerprint-gui
# mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/sys-auth/upekbsapi-bin

2. Then I edited the fingerprint-gui-1.03 ebuild from Ref. 2 to create the file /usr/local/portage/sys-auth/fingerprint-gui/fingerprint-gui-1.04.ebuild containing:

# Copyright 1999-2011 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: $

EAPI=3

inherit qt4-r2 versionator

MAKEOPTS="$MAKEOPTS -j1"

MY_PV=$(replace_version_separator 2 -)
DESCRIPTION="Use Fingerprint Devices with Linux"
HOMEPAGE="http://www.n-view.net/Appliance/fingerprint/"
SRC_URI="http://www.n-view.net/Appliance/fingerprint/download/${PN}-${MY_PV}.tar.gz"

LICENSE="GPL-2"
SLOT="0"
KEYWORDS="~amd64"
IUSE="upekbsapi"

DEPEND=">=sys-auth/libfprint-0.1.0_pre2
|| ( ( x11-libs/qt-core:4 x11-libs/qt-gui ) x11-libs/qt:4 )
>=app-crypt/qca-2.0.0
>=app-crypt/qca-ossl-2.0.0_beta3
x11-libs/libfakekey
>=dev-libs/libusb-1.0.0
sys-auth/polkit-qt
sys-libs/pam
!sys-auth/pam_fprint
!sys-auth/fprintd
!sys-auth/thinkfinger
"
RDEPEND="${DEPEND}
upekbsapi? ( sys-auth/upekbsapi-bin[headers] )"

S=${WORKDIR}/${PN}-${MY_PV}

src_configure() {
if has_version '>=sys-auth/polkit-qt-0.99.0'; then
eqmake4 LIBPOLKIT_QT=LIBPOLKIT_QT_1_1 || die "qmake4 failed"
else
eqmake4 || die "qmake4 failed"
fi
}

src_install() {
emake INSTALL_ROOT="${D}" DESTDIR="${D}" install || die "emake install failed"

domenu bin/fingerprint-gui/fingerprint-gui.desktop

dodoc CHANGELOG README COPYING\
doc/*.html\
doc/*.png
}

pkg_postinst() {
elog "1) Please see /usr/share/doc/${P}/Install-step-by-step.html to configure your device."
elog "   A fast (not recommended) way to use fingerprint-gui with your pam based application"
elog "   you can add the following line to the first off /etc/pam.d/system-auth"
elog "   auth        sufficient  pam_fingerprint-gui.so"
elog "   For more security we recommend that you don't enable fingerprint-gui authentication for all pam services."
elog "   See Install-step-by-step.html again."
elog "2) You must be in the plugdev group to use fingerprint"
if use upekbsapi; then
elog "3) You select to install upeks bsapi library, it's not open-sourced. Use it on your own risk."
fi
}

3. I edited the upekbsapi-bin-3.5.2.ebuild from Ref. 2 to create the file /usr/local/portage/sys-auth/upekbsapi-bin/upekbsapi-bin-3.5.2.ebuild containing:

# Copyright 1999-2010 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: $

EAPI=3

FP_GUI=fingerprint-gui-1.04
MY_PN=${PN/bsapi-bin/}
DESCRIPTION="UPEK Biometric Services SDK for PC"
HOMEPAGE="http://www.upek.com/solutions/eikon/default.asp"
SRC_URI="http://www.n-view.net/Appliance/fingerprint/download/${FP_GUI}.tar.gz"

LICENSE="EULA"
SLOT="0"
KEYWORDS="~x86 ~amd64"
IUSE="-headers"

DEPEND=""
RDEPEND="${DEPEND}"

S=${FP_GUI}/${MY_PN}

src_unpack() {
unpack ${FP_GUI}.tar.gz
}

src_install() {
cd "${S}"/
dodoc Readme.pdf releasenotes.txt UPEK_EULA.pdf
if use headers; then
dodoc doc/BSAPI.pdf  doc/BSAPIUsageonLinux.pdf
insinto /usr/include
doins include/bsapi.h
doins include/bserror.h
doins include/bstypes.h
fi
if use x86; then
dolib lib/libbsapi.so
elif use amd64; then
dolib lib64/libbsapi.so
fi
insinto /etc/udev/rules.d
doins 91-fingerprint-gui-upek.rules
dodir /var/${MY_PN}_data
fperms 777 /var/${MY_PN}_data
echo "nvmprefix=\"/var/${MY_PN}_data/.NVM\" dualswipe=0" > ${MY_PN}.cfg
insinto /etc
doins ${MY_PN}.cfg
}

4. Then I entered the following commands to create manifests for the two packages and to merge (install) them:

# cd /usr/local/portage/sys-auth/upekbsapi-bin
# ebuild upekbsapi-bin-3.5.2.ebuild manifest
# cd /usr/local/portage/sys-auth/fingerprint-gui
# ebuild fingerprint-gui-1.04.ebuild manifest
# USE="headers" emerge -1v upekbsapi-bin
# USE="upekbsapi" emerge -1v fingerprint-gui

5. The file /etc/pam.d/system-auth on my laptop contained the following lines:

auth            required        pam_env.so
auth            required        pam_unix.so try_first_pass likeauth nullok
auth            optional        pam_permit.so

account         required        pam_unix.so
account         optional        pam_permit.so

password        required        pam_cracklib.so difok=2 minlen=8 dcredit=2 ocredit=2 retry=3
password        required        pam_unix.so try_first_pass use_authtok nullok sha512 shadow
password        optional        pam_permit.so

session         required        pam_limits.so
session         required        pam_env.so
session         required        pam_unix.so
session         optional        pam_permit.so

and I edited it to be as follows:

auth            required        pam_env.so
auth            sufficient      pam_fingerprint-gui.so -d try_first_identified
auth            required        pam_unix.so try_first_pass likeauth nullok
auth            optional        pam_permit.so

account         required        pam_unix.so
account         optional        pam_permit.so

password        required        pam_cracklib.so difok=2 minlen=8 dcredit=2 ocredit=2 retry=3
password        required        pam_unix.so try_first_pass use_authtok nullok sha512 shadow
password        optional        pam_permit.so

session         required        pam_limits.so
session         required        pam_env.so
session         required        pam_unix.so
session         optional        pam_permit.so

6. The UPEK fingerprint scanner on my laptop is Device 003 on USB Bus 002:

# lsusb | grep -i upek
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 147e:1001 Upek

As you can see below, the device is correctly a member of the plugdev group:

# ls -la /dev/bus/usb/002
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root         120 Mar 20 15:31 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root          80 Mar 20 15:31 ..
crw-rw-r-- 1 root usb     189, 128 Mar 20 15:31 001
crw-rw-r-- 1 root usb     189, 129 Mar 20 15:31 002
crw-rw-r-- 1 root plugdev 189, 130 Mar 20 17:37 003
crw-rw-r-- 1 root usb     189, 131 Mar 20 15:31 004

and my user account is a member of the plugdev group too:

$ groups
disk lp wheel floppy uucp cron audio cdrom dialout video games cdrw usb users kismet clamav haldaemon plugdev scanner pulse-access pulse-rt pulse kvm crontab vboxusers polkituser

7. I don’t think it was necessary to do, but I changed the file permissions to make sure all the devices on Bus 002 were completely accessible:

# chmod 777 /dev/bus/usb/002 -R

# ls -la /dev/bus/usb/002
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root         120 Mar 20 15:31 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root          80 Mar 20 15:31 ..
crwxrwxrwx 1 root usb     189, 128 Mar 20 15:31 001
crwxrwxrwx 1 root usb     189, 129 Mar 20 15:31 002
crwxrwxrwx 1 root plugdev 189, 130 Mar 20 17:37 003
crwxrwxrwx 1 root usb     189, 131 Mar 20 15:31 004

When I reboot, the file permissions revert to those shown in Step 6 above anyway.

8. Two udev rules files were created when I installed the packages:

# locate fingerprint | grep rule
/etc/udev/rules.d/91-fingerprint-gui-upek.rules
/lib64/udev/rules.d/91-fingerprint-gui-upek.rules

and the two files contain the following:

# cat /etc/udev/rules.d/91-fingerprint-gui-upek.rules
# udev rules for fingerprint-gui (libbsapi)

# set permissions
ATTRS{idVendor}=="0483", ATTRS{idProduct}=="201[56]",   SYMLINK+="input/touchchip-%k", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="201[56]",   SYMLINK+="input/touchchip-%k", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="100[0123]", SYMLINK+="input/touchchip-%k", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="300[01]",   SYMLINK+="input/touchchip-%k", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="500[23]",   SYMLINK+="input/touchchip-%k", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"

# enable power saving
ATTRS{idVendor}=="0483", ATTRS{idProduct}=="201[56]",   ATTR{power/control}=="*", ATTR{power/control}="auto"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="201[56]",   ATTR{power/control}=="*", ATTR{power/control}="auto"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="100[0123]", ATTR{power/control}=="*", ATTR{power/control}="auto"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="300[01]",   ATTR{power/control}=="*", ATTR{power/control}="auto"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="500[23]",   ATTR{power/control}=="*", ATTR{power/control}="auto"

# cat /lib64/udev/rules.d/91-fingerprint-gui-upek.rules
# udev rules for fingerprint-gui (libbsapi)

# set permissions
ATTRS{idVendor}=="0483", ATTRS{idProduct}=="201[56]", SYMLINK+="input/touchchip-%k", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="201[56]", SYMLINK+="input/touchchip-%k", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="100[01]", SYMLINK+="input/touchchip-%k", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="3000",    SYMLINK+="input/touchchip-%k", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"

# enable power saving
ATTRS{idVendor}=="0483", ATTRS{idProduct}=="201[56]", ATTR{power/level}=="*", ATTR{power/level}="auto"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="201[56]", ATTR{power/level}=="*", ATTR{power/level}="auto"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="100[01]", ATTR{power/level}=="*", ATTR{power/level}="auto"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="147e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="3000",    ATTR{power/level}=="*", ATTR{power/level}="auto"

9. After reading a post in the Fingerprint GUI Forum (see quote further on) I decided to delete a file in /var/upek_data/ but, in retrospect, I’m not sure it was necessary, and, in any case, the file was subsequently recreated (perhaps when I reinstalled the packages?) and apparently has no adverse effect at present:

# ls -la /var/upek_data/
# rm /var/upek_data/.NVMe3031dcc911668f65aaeb5209f4db5ad5be21fbdbc810ac101963da0bf952f9a.bin

I had decided to delete the file because I was seeing the error message “ABSOpen() failed -1057 (Fingerprint sensor device communication error.)” in the log file /var/log/messages, and a post in the Fingerprint GUI Forum suggested deleting the file:

“> Setting up the NVM emulation caused fingerprintGUI not to directly display the error, but after a second or two. Auth.log now shows a different error.

Yes. This one:

ABSOpen() failed -1057 (Fingerprint sensor device communication error.)

In some cases I’ve seen that removing all *.bin files in /var/upek/ did help. Try it.

In other cases there was some other process which had held open the device (e.g. a virtual machine running Windows on that host).

W.U.

Wolfgang Ullrich
March 18th, 2010 10:06am“

(The Fingerprint GUI Forum refers to error messages being in a log file /var/log/auth.log, but, in my case, they were in the log file /var/log/messages.)

10. Anyway, now when I press e.g. Ctrl-Alt-F2 to open a VT, as usual I see a login prompt:

meshedgedx login:

However, when I enter my username and press Enter, not only is the usual Password prompt displayed but some additional text is displayed below it:

meshedgedx login: fitzcarraldo
Password:
Fingerprint Login 1.04
Authenticating fitzcarraldo
Swipe your finger or type your password:

If I enter my password, I am logged in as usual. But if I instead swipe my finger on the fingerprint scanner, I am also logged in. Nice.

11. If I open a Konsole window and enter any command using sudo, let’s say sudo whoami for example, I am prompted as usual for my user password but now a GUI widget (see image below) also pops up prompting me to swipe my finger over the fingerprint scanner. Either entering my password or swiping my finger will allow me to launch the command. Nice.

12. The instructions in Ref. 3 say to launch fingerprint-gui using sudo to register a fingerprint for the root user (i.e. to enable you to use the fingerprint scanner in order to log in as root user from e.g. a Konsole/Terminal window). In fact I had to use the command kdesu fingerprint-gui to launch Fingerprint GUI and register a fingerprint to enable me to log-in as the root user either by entering the root user’s password as usual or by swiping my finger. Having done that, now when I enter the su command in a Konsole window I am prompted to enter the root user’s password as usual but am also prompted to swipe my finger instead if I want:

$ su
Password:
Fingerprint Login 1.04
Authenticating root
Swipe your finger or type your password:
OK
No protocol specified
No protocol specified

# whoami
root
#

Nice.

By the way, this also means I can swipe my finger to log-in as root user via a VT.

According to the Fingerprint GUI Forum, the error messages “No protocol specified” shown above are confined to KDE. It is possible to avoid them by using an export command first:

$ export XAUTHORITY=~/.Xauthority
$ su
Password:
Fingerprint Login 1.04
Authenticating root
Swipe your finger or type your password:
OK

#

I simply added the export command to my ~/.bashrc file, and the problem is fixed.

13. My only problem now is with the kdesu command: I have to enter both the root user’s password and swipe my finger to launch an application using kdesu. For example, if I enter the command kdesu kwrite in a Konsole window, I am first prompted by a KDE pop-up window to enter the root user’s password as usual, and, once I have entered the password in that window, I am then prompted in the Konsole window to swipe my finger. I have to do both in order for the kdesu command to execute.

14. According to Ref. 1, a limitation in KDM means that it is not possible to use the fingerprint scanner to log-in to KDE (although no such limitation exists in the case of GDM: see Ref. 3 for details). However, I’m using KDM and KDE 4.8.1 and, as soon as I enter my user name on the KDM login page, the Fingerprint GUI window pops up prompting me to swipe a finger or type my login/password. If I do either then I am logged in to KDE. Nice.

So, there you have it: Fingerprint GUI 1.04 + UPEK BSAPI SDK for Linux 3.5.2 + KDE 4.8.1 + Gentoo Linux + Upek TCS5B (147e:1001) fingerprint scanner are a working combination. Kudos to Wolfgang Ullrich for creating Fingerprint GUI (and the Web site to accompany it).

REFERENCES

1. Fingerprint GUI

2. Gentoo’s Bugzilla – Bug Report No. 341105 – fingerprint-gui (new package)

3. Fingerprint GUI Step-by-Step Manual

4. Fingerprint GUI User’s Manual

EDIT (May 23, 2012): An ebuild for Fingerprint GUI was added to the Portage main tree on May 21, 2012. It is not identical to the ebuild I posted here a couple of months ago but also installs version 1.04 of the utility, so try merging the package from the main Portage tree as that is an easier way to install it.

The problem occurred with versions 11.11, 11.12 and 12.1 of the FGLRX driver (the package x11-drivers/ati-drivers). Well, today I installed version 12.2 of the driver and am pleased to report that I can again set media players to use Xv output without causing the X.Org Server to crash (I’m currently using xorg-server-1.11.4). Likewise, other people who I am talking to via Skype can again enable their Web cams without causing the X.Org Server on my machine to crash.

Anyway, recently on the blogsphere I read about Takeoff, another Plasmoid application launcher for KDE, first issued end July 2011. Looking at screen snapshots of Takeoff reminded me of a tablet’s screen: an uncluttered array of large application icons. My curiosity was piqued, so I decided to install the Takeoff Plasmoid. Here’s what I did to install it in KDE 4.8.0 in Gentoo Linux. The same straightforward procedure should also work in other Linux distributions with KDE 4.8, although installation is a bit easier for Arch Linux, Chakra, Fedora, openSUSE and Ubuntu, as packages exist for those distributions (see the Download page on the project’s Web site for details).

I downloaded takeoff-1.0.tar.gz to ~/Desktop

I right-clicked on the tarball and selected Extract > Extract Archive To… and extracted the files to the directory ~/takeoff-1.0

I opened a Konsole window and entered the following commands:

cd ~/takeoff-1.0

cat README

The README file tells you exactly how to install the Plasma widget (although I ignored the instruction to create the directory ~/takeoff-1.0/build/ as it already existed):

cd build

cmake .. && make

sudo make install

kbuildsycoca4

Then I did the usual in KDE to add the Takeoff widget to the Panel.

To configure Takeoff I right-clicked on its icon, clicked on ‘Takeoff Settings’ and, under ‘General Settings’, I unticked ‘Show Takeoff in full screen mode’. I also clicked on the icon under ‘General Settings’ and changed the icon to one of my choice. If you fancy a picture as the background of the launcher’s panel, tick ‘Show background image’, click on the ‘browse for file’ icon and select any wallpaper file that you have stored on your disk. There are other configuration options you can play with, such as the number of columns and rows of application icons to display in the launcher’s panel.

To display the launcher’s panel, just click on the Takeoff icon on your Panel. The Takeoff panel will pop up, as shown in the snaphot below of my screen.

Notice that there are tabs across the top of the launcher’s panel; these are the different categories of application available: Favourites, All Applications, Accessories, Education, Games, Graphics, Internet, Office, and so on. Click on one of these tabs to view all the applications in that category. If there are too many applications in that category to fit on the launcher’s panel, there will be a slider button at the bottom of the panel; just click on the next number on it to view the next page of applications in the category.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, naturally those are Gentoo penguins on my Desktop wallpaper.

The masked Compiz packages installed on my machine were:

# eix -I compiz
[D] dev-python/compizconfig-python
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4 [M](~)0.8.4-r1 [M](~)0.8.4-r3
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r3(00:52:18 01/09/11)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compizconfig Python Bindings

[D] x11-libs/compiz-bcop
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4
Installed versions: 0.8.4(23:33:17 27/08/11)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Option code Generator

[D] x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-gconf
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r2
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r2(18:39:26 27/08/11)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compizconfig Gconf Backend

[D] x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-kconfig4
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4 {aqua}
Installed versions: 0.8.4(23:35:31 27/08/11)(-aqua -kdeenablefinal)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compizconfig Kconfig Backend

[D] x11-libs/libcompizconfig
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r2!t
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r2!t(18:32:41 27/08/11)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Configuration System

[D] x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.6-r1 {gconf libnotify}
Installed versions: 0.8.6-r1(23:35:08 27/08/11)(libnotify -gconf)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion Window Decorator Extra Plugins

[D] x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-main
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.6-r1 {gconf}
Installed versions: 0.8.6-r1(18:33:51 27/08/11)(-gconf)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion Window Decorator Plugins

[D] x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-unsupported
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r1!m
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r1!m(18:36:55 27/08/11)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion Window Decorator Unsupported Plugins

[D] x11-wm/compiz
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.6-r3 {+cairo fuse gconf gnome gtk kde +svg}
Installed versions: 0.8.6-r3(18:54:59 23/11/11)(cairo gtk kde svg -fuse -gconf -gnome)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: OpenGL window and compositing manager

[D] x11-wm/compiz-fusion
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r1 [M](~)0.8.6 {emerald gnome kde unsupported}
Installed versions: 0.8.6(18:55:16 23/11/11)(emerald kde -gnome -unsupported)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion (meta)

Found 10 matches.
# eix -I fusion
[D] x11-apps/fusion-icon
Available versions: [M](~)0.1-r2 {gtk qt4}
Installed versions: 0.1-r2(18:55:09 23/11/11)(gtk qt4)
Homepage: http://compiz-fusion.org
Description: Compiz Fusion Tray Icon and Manager

[D] x11-wm/compiz-fusion
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r1 [M](~)0.8.6 {emerald gnome kde unsupported}
Installed versions: 0.8.6(18:55:16 23/11/11)(emerald kde -gnome -unsupported)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion (meta)

Found 2 matches.
# eix -I ccsm
[D] x11-apps/ccsm
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r1
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r1(23:33:31 27/08/11)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compizconfig Settings Manager

# eix -I emerald
[D] x11-themes/emerald-themes
Available versions: [M](~)0.5.2
Installed versions: 0.5.2(18:47:58 27/01/11)
Homepage: http://compiz-fusion.org
Description: Emerald window decorator themes

[D] x11-wm/emerald
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r2
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r2(21:28:46 27/08/11)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Emerald Window Decorator

Found 2 matches.

Using the locate command I quickly located the ebuilds:

/usr/portage/dev-python/compizconfig-python/compizconfig-python-0.8.4-r3.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-libs/compiz-bcop/compiz-bcop-0.8.4.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-gconf/compizconfig-backend-gconf-0.8.4-r2.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-kconfig4/compizconfig-backend-kconfig4-0.8.4.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-libs/libcompizconfig/libcompizconfig-0.8.4-r2.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra/compiz-plugins-extra-0.8.6-r1.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-main/compiz-plugins-main-0.8.6-r1.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-unsupported/compiz-plugins-unsupported-0.8.4-r1.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-wm/compiz/compiz-0.8.6-r3.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-wm/compiz-fusion/compiz-fusion-0.8.6.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-apps/fusion-icon/fusion-icon-0.1-r2.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-apps/ccsm/ccsm-0.8.4-r1.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-themes/emerald-themes/emerald-themes-0.5.2.ebuild
/usr/portage/x11-wm/emerald/emerald-0.8.4-r2.ebuild

I first created the necessary directories in my local overlay:

mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/dev-python/compizconfig-python
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-libs/compiz-bcop
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-gconf
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-kconfig4
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-libs/libcompizconfig
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-main
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-unsupported
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-wm/compiz
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-wm/compiz-fusion
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-apps/fusion-icon
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-apps/ccsm
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-themes/emerald-themes
mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/x11-wm/emerald

Then I copied the ebuilds and associated files into each directory and generated a manifest for each:

cd /usr/local/portage/dev-python/compizconfig-python
cp -r /usr/portage/dev-python/compizconfig-python/* .
ebuild compizconfig-python-0.8.4-r3.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-libs/compiz-bcop
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-libs/compiz-bcop/* .
ebuild compiz-bcop-0.8.4.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-gconf
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-gconf/* .
ebuild compizconfig-backend-gconf-0.8.4-r2.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-kconfig4
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-kconfig4/* .
ebuild compizconfig-backend-kconfig4-0.8.4.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-libs/libcompizconfig
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-libs/libcompizconfig/* .
ebuild libcompizconfig-0.8.4-r2.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra/* .
ebuild compiz-plugins-extra-0.8.6-r1.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-main
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-main/* .
ebuild compiz-plugins-main-0.8.6-r1.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-unsupported
cp /usr/portage/x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-unsupported/* .
ebuild compiz-plugins-unsupported-0.8.4-r1.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-wm/compiz
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-wm/compiz/* .
ebuild compiz-0.8.6-r3.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-wm/compiz-fusion
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-wm/compiz-fusion/* .
ebuild compiz-fusion-0.8.6.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-apps/fusion-icon
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-apps/fusion-icon/* .
ebuild fusion-icon-0.1-r2.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-apps/ccsm
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-apps/ccsm/* .
ebuild ccsm-0.8.4-r1.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-themes/emerald-themes
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-themes/emerald-themes/* .
ebuild emerald-themes-0.5.2.ebuild manifest
cd /usr/local/portage/x11-wm/emerald
cp -r /usr/portage/x11-wm/emerald/* .
ebuild emerald-0.8.4-r2.ebuild manifest

My /etc/make.conf file contains the following lines required for my local overlay and to accept any licences:

PORTDIR_OVERLAY="${PORTDIR_OVERLAY} /usr/local/portage/"
ACCEPT_LICENSE="*"

and I named my local overlay ‘local_overlay’:

mkdir /usr/local/portage/profiles
echo "local_overlay" > /usr/local/portage/profiles/repo_name

I then unmasked the ebuilds in my local overlay by listing them in the file
/etc/portage/package.unmask:

=dev-python/compizconfig-python-0.8.4-r3::local_overlay
=x11-libs/compiz-bcop-0.8.4::local_overlay
=x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-gconf-0.8.4-r2::local_overlay
=x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-kconfig4-0.8.4::local_overlay
=x11-libs/libcompizconfig-0.8.4-r2::local_overlay
=x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra-0.8.6-r1::local_overlay
=x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-main-0.8.6-r1::local_overlay
=x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-unsupported-0.8.4-r1::local_overlay
=x11-wm/compiz-0.8.6-r3::local_overlay
=x11-wm/compiz-fusion-0.8.6::local_overlay
=x11-apps/fusion-icon-0.1-r2::local_overlay
=x11-apps/ccsm-0.8.4-r1::local_overlay
=x11-themes/emerald-themes-0.5.2::local_overlay
=x11-wm/emerald-0.8.4-r2::local_overlay

I right-clicked on the Fusion Icon on the Panel and selected Quit, then I uninstalled the packages and reinstalled them from my local overlay:

emerge -aC compizconfig-python compiz-bcop compizconfig-backend-gconf compizconfig-backend-kconfig4 libcompizconfig compiz-plugins-extra compiz-plugins-main compiz-plugins-unsupported compiz compiz-fusion fusion-icon ccsm emerald-themes emerald

USE="-kde qt4" emerge -1v compizconfig-python compiz-bcop compizconfig-backend-gconf compizconfig-backend-kconfig4 libcompizconfig compiz-plugins-extra compiz-plugins-main compiz-plugins-unsupported compiz compiz-fusion fusion-icon ccsm emerald-themes emerald

The installed packages are now:

# eix -I compiz
[I] dev-python/compizconfig-python
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4 {M}(~)0.8.4[1] [M](~)0.8.4-r1 {M}(~)0.8.4-r1[1] [M](~)0.8.4-r3 {M}(~)0.8.4-r3[1]
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r3[1](02:03:18 28/01/12)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compizconfig Python Bindings

[I] x11-libs/compiz-bcop
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4 {M}(~)0.8.4[1]
Installed versions: 0.8.4[1](02:01:00 28/01/12)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Option code Generator

[I] x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-gconf
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r2 {M}(~)0.8.4-r2[1]
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r2[1](02:03:34 28/01/12)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compizconfig Gconf Backend

[I] x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-kconfig4
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4 {M}(~)0.8.4[1] {aqua}
Installed versions: 0.8.4[1](02:03:59 28/01/12)(-aqua)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compizconfig Kconfig Backend

[I] x11-libs/libcompizconfig
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r2!t {M}(~)0.8.4-r2!t[1]
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r2!t[1](02:01:31 28/01/12)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Configuration System

[I] x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.6-r1 {M}(~)0.8.6-r1[1] {gconf libnotify}
Installed versions: 0.8.6-r1[1](02:05:19 28/01/12)(libnotify -gconf)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion Window Decorator Extra Plugins

[I] x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-main
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.6-r1 {M}(~)0.8.6-r1[1] {gconf}
Installed versions: 0.8.6-r1[1](02:02:55 28/01/12)(-gconf)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion Window Decorator Plugins

[I] x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-unsupported
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r1!m {M}(~)0.8.4-r1!m[1]
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r1!m[1](02:06:11 28/01/12)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion Window Decorator Unsupported Plugins

[I] x11-wm/compiz
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.6-r3 {M}(~)0.8.6-r3[1] {+cairo fuse gconf gnome gtk kde +svg}
Installed versions: 0.8.6-r3[1](02:41:46 28/01/12)(cairo gtk svg -fuse -gconf -gnome -kde)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: OpenGL window and compositing manager

[I] x11-wm/compiz-fusion
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r1 {M}(~)0.8.4-r1[1] [M](~)0.8.6 {M}(~)0.8.6[1] {emerald gnome kde unsupported}
Installed versions: 0.8.6[1](02:07:11 28/01/12)(emerald -gnome -kde -unsupported)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion (meta)

[1] "local_overlay" /usr/local/portage

Found 10 matches.
# eix -I fusion
[I] x11-apps/fusion-icon
Available versions: [M](~)0.1-r2 {M}(~)0.1-r2[1] {gtk qt4}
Installed versions: 0.1-r2[1](02:06:20 28/01/12)(gtk qt4)
Homepage: http://compiz-fusion.org
Description: Compiz Fusion Tray Icon and Manager

[I] x11-wm/compiz-fusion
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r1 {M}(~)0.8.4-r1[1] [M](~)0.8.6 {M}(~)0.8.6[1] {emerald gnome kde unsupported}
Installed versions: 0.8.6[1](02:07:11 28/01/12)(emerald -gnome -kde -unsupported)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compiz Fusion (meta)

[1] "local_overlay" /usr/local/portage

Found 2 matches.
# eix -I ccsm
[I] x11-apps/ccsm
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r1 {M}(~)0.8.4-r1[1]
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r1[1](02:05:30 28/01/12)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Compizconfig Settings Manager

[1] "local_overlay" /usr/local/portage
# eix -I emerald
[I] x11-themes/emerald-themes
Available versions: [M](~)0.5.2 {M}(~)0.5.2[1]
Installed versions: 0.5.2[1](02:07:05 28/01/12)
Homepage: http://compiz-fusion.org
Description: Emerald window decorator themes

[I] x11-wm/emerald
Available versions: [M](~)0.8.4-r2 {M}(~)0.8.4-r2[1]
Installed versions: 0.8.4-r2[1](02:06:55 28/01/12)
Homepage: http://www.compiz.org/
Description: Emerald Window Decorator

[1] "local_overlay" /usr/local/portage

Found 2 matches.

I launched KRunner (Alt-F2) and entered the command “fusion-icon” (without the quotes) to get the Fusion Icon back on the Panel, and then rebooted to check if everything was working correctly.

The only way I could get compiz-0.8.6-r3 to build this time was to specify "-kde" as a USE flag. The last time I merged that package, back in November 2011, it would build with USE="kde qt4" and enable me to select Emerald, GTK Window Decorator or KDE Window Decorator as the window decorator in Compiz. But, as the package will no longer build with the kde USE flag, I now only have the choice of Emerald or GTK Window Decorator. Perhaps this old, unmaintained compiz ebuild will no longer build with USE="kde" because I have since installed new versions of other packages on which it depends, and/or because I am now using KDE 4.8.0 instead of KDE 4.7.3. Anyway, at least I now have Compiz available for a while yet and can still select KWin or Compiz as the Window Manager.

EDIT (February 1, 2012): The stuff overlay has the following ebuilds, which do enable the KDE4 Window Decorator to be used with Compiz in KDE 4.8.0:

dev-python/compizconfig-python-0.8.4-r3
x11-libs/compiz-bcop-0.8.8
x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-gconf-0.8.8
x11-libs/compizconfig-backend-kconfig4-0.8.8
x11-libs/libcompizconfig-0.8.8
x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-extra-0.8.8
x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-main-0.8.8
x11-plugins/compiz-plugins-unsupported-0.8.8
x11-wm/compiz-0.8.8
x11-wm/compiz-fusion-0.8.8
x11-apps/fusion-icon-0.1-r2
x11-apps/ccsm-0.8.4-r1
x11-themes/emerald-themes-0.5.2
x11-wm/emerald-0.8.8

which can be installed as follows:

# layman -a stuff
# USE="kde qt4" emerge -1v compizconfig-python::stuff compiz-bcop::stuff compizconfig-backend-gconf::stuff compizconfig-backend-kconfig4::stuff libcompizconfig::stuff compiz-plugins-extra::stuff compiz-plugins-main::stuff compiz-plugins-unsupported::stuff compiz::stuff compiz-fusion::stuff fusion-icon::stuff ccsm::stuff emerald-themes::stuff emerald::stuff

Another alternative is to install the eSpeak text-to-speech synthesizer and use the GUI KAlarm utility to run the following command at any interval you like (every hour, every half hour, every 15 minutes or whatever you want):

date +%I:%M%p | espeak

When the command above is executed on the hour, the voice speaks the hour followed by “zero zero AM/PM”. For example it says “seven zero zero PM” rather than “seven o’clock PM”. If you prefer the latter, you can modify the one-line command:

if [ $(date +%M) != "00" ]; then date +%-H:%M%p%Z; else echo -n $(date +%-H); echo -n "oh clock "; date +%p; date +%Z; fi | espeak -ven+f6

Use the command date --help to find out the different parameters available for the date command. You can also play around with the last two characters in the above command to get different voices. For example “m1″, “f4″ etc.

Using KAlarm’s GUI is less daunting for many people than setting up a cronjob to run the command, which would be yet another way of doing it. Also, by using KAlarm it is quick and easy to enable and disable the talking clock.

An alternative to the above command would be to run one of the many Bash scripts found on the Web. One such is saytime. SayTime uses the festival text-to-speech engine, an alternative to espeak, which you would need to install. The guts of SayTime is simply the command:

echo "Today is `date +%d` `date +%B` `date +%Y` and now the time is `date +%k` and `date +%M` minutes" | festival --tts

so you could use that command with KAlarm or a cronjob if you wanted. You can play around with the commands to get the time spoken the way you want.

eSpeak is also configurable; check out the Web site eSpeak text to speech. For example, the following is the time spoken in Portuguese instead of English:

date +%I:%M%p | espeak -vpt

or in English with a Scottish accent:

date +%I:%M%p | espeak -ven-sc

or in English with a Brummie accent:

date +%I:%M%p | espeak -ven-wm

or in Latin with a female voice:

date +%I:%M%p | espeak -vla+f4

Three guesses what this one does:

date +%I:%M%p | espeak -ven+whisper

You can have some fun exploring the options.

1) Firefox and Chromium could no longer play QuickTime videos on the Apple iTunes Movie Trailers Web site;

2) a bug in the latest two releases of the closed-source ATI FGLRX driver (AMD Catalyst 11.11 and 11.12 for Linux) that causes the X.Org Server to crash when I try to play .mov files using XVideo (Xv) output in media players such as SMPlayer, VLC, GNOME-MPlayer etc. (see e.g. Gentoo Bug Report No. 391193).

The reason I mention these two problems in the same breath is because I encountered the second whilst trying to fix the first. Anyway, below I explain what I did to resolve the two problems.

I first had a problem displaying QuickTime movie trailers in Firefox a couple of years ago. The solution then was to install the User Agent Switcher add-on for Firefox and create a user agent to fool the Apple Web site into thinking Firefox was using Apple’s QuickTime browser plugin instead of mplayerplug-in for Linux. But within a few days Firefox again could not play movie trailers on the Apple Web site. I had to uninstall mplayerplug-in and install the then latest version of its successor, gecko-mediaplayer (which uses gnome-mplayer). All was good again until…

Several months ago I found that, yet again, Firefox could not play movie trailers on the Apple Web site. I tried to view the trailers in Chromium instead but had the same problem. Both browsers just displayed a black box where the video should be playing. A little searching on the Web led me to the conclusion that the problem lay with the latest version of gecko-mediaplayer and gnome-mplayer that I was using at the time, so I gave up and decided to wait for new versions of gecko-mediaplayer and gnome-mplayer to be released.

Now, yesterday I wanted to watch a particular trailer on the Apple Web site, but, despite having installed the latest version of gecko-mediaplayer and gnome-mplayer anyway a few days ago, neither Firefox nor Chromium would display the trailer. A little searching on the Web suggested that I should try mozplugger instead of gecko-mediaplayer, so I uninstalled the latter, installed mozplugger and… the black box in the browser was replaced by a white box displaying the QuickTime ‘Q’ logo and a message that I needed to install QuickTime. Argghh!

So I uninstalled mozplugger and reinstalled gecko-mediaplayer and gnome-mplayer (the same versions that I installed recently, you inderstand). This time my attempts to watch trailers on the Apple Web site resulted in Firefox and Chromium displaying grey boxes and appearing to download the QuickTime videos, but then the X.Org Server crashed, restarted and the Desktop Environment’s login screen appeared. Furthermore, when I tried playing .mov videos in VLC, the same thing happened. Perhaps now you may understand why I mentioned above the bug with the FGLRX driver? It took me a few hours to realise there were two separate problems here.

The work-around to the second problem was to configure media players to use a different output driver rather than the XVideo (Xv) output driver. For example, in VLC this is done via Tools > Preferences > Video and selecting ‘GLX video output (XCB)’ as the Output under Video Settings. For SMPlayer this is done via Options > Preferences > General and selecting ‘gl (fast – ATI cards)’ as the Output driver under the Video tab.

And, most importantly, in order to enable gecko-mediaplayer to display those Apple QuickTime trailers in Firefox and Chromium I had to launch gnome-mplayer, select Edit > Preferences, click on the Player tab and select ‘gl’ as the Video Output under Adjust Output Settings. Actually, clicking on the MPlayer tab and entering “-vo gl” (without the quotes) in the ‘Extra Options to MPlayer:’ box achieves the same result. By the way, the tickboxes QuickTime Emulation, RealPlayer Emulation, Windows Media Player Emulation and DIVX Player Emulation were already ticked on the Plug-in tab.

So, there you have it. After several hours of searching and tinkering I can again watch movie trailers on the Apple Web site. Don’t you just love Linux?

For the sake of completeness, below I list the versions of the applicable packages currently installed on my main laptop:

firefox-9.0
chromium-16.0.912.63
gecko-mediaplayer-1.0.5_beta1_p20111207
gnome-mplayer-1.0.5_beta1
mplayer-1.0_rc4_p20111215
ffmpeg-0.9
libquicktime-1.2.3-r1
xorg-server-1.11.2-r2
ati-drivers-11.12

EDIT (January 2, 2012): I’ve just had a thought: When I used Skype for Linux a few days ago, my laptop rebooted spontaneously as soon as the person at the other end enabled her Webcam in Skype for Windows. This was reproducible consistently. However, I could enable my Webcam, she could see me in Skype on her PC, and I could also see video of me in Skype’s ‘myself preview’ on my laptop. Now, it could be a coincidence but I wonder if the reboot occurred because Skype for Linux uses XVideo? Skype’s Web page for Skype for Linux lists “Video card driver with Xv support” as one of the hardware requirements, which looks pretty conclusive to me. However, this leaves a couple of niggling questions: a) If Skype does indeed use XVideo, why didn’t the ‘myself preview’ video in the Skype for Linux window crash the X.Org Server?. b) If the FGLRX driver bug is the cause, why did my laptop reboot instead of just the X.Org Server crashing, restarting and displaying the Desktop Environment login screen? Furthermore, Skype’s Options > Video Devices > Test does work correctly on my laptop. So perhaps the rebooting problem is caused by a different bug. Suspicious, though. Unfortunately, as far as I know there is no way of switching Skype to use OpenGL instead of XVideo, so I cannot prove that XVideo is the cause of this particular problem I’m experiencing with Skype.

For an overview of the installation and configuration procedure, see Running the Tor client on Linux/BSD/Unix. Below I will explain how to install and use Tor in Gentoo Linux.

Before you use Tor, it is useful to check your current IP address. Several Web sites will tell you your current IP address; here is the site I usually use: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

1. Install Tor:

# USE="tordns" emerge -1v tor

(Actually, the more-recent versions of the tor package don’t require that USE flag but I’ve left it in as it does no harm.)

2. Install Vidalia:

# cd /usr/portage/distfiles/
# wget --no-check-certificate https://www.torproject.org/dist/vidalia/vidalia-x.y.z.tar.gz
# USE="tor" emerge -1v vidalia

Use the current version x.y.z of the vidalia package in the package manager and https://www.torproject.org/dist/vidalia/

3. Install Polipo:

# emerge -1v polipo

4. Download polipo.conf

# cd /etc/polipo
# wget --no-check-certificate https://gitweb.torproject.org/torbrowser.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/build-scripts/config/polipo.conf

5. Edit it and change proxyPort = 8118 to proxyPort = 8123

6. Copy it to /etc/polipo/:

# cd /etc/polipo
# cp /etc/polipo/config /etc/polipo/config.bak
# cp polipo.conf config

7. Configure Firefox:

Edit > Preferences > Network > Settings

Manual proxy configuration:

HTTP Proxy: 127.0.0.1 Port: 8123
SSL Proxy: 127.0.0.1 Port 8123

SOCKS Host: 127.0.0.1 Port 9051
SOCKS v5
No Proxy for: 127.0.0.1

8. Run Vidalia and then configure it:

$ vidalia &

a) Settings > Sharing

Select ‘Run as a client only’

b) Settings > Advanced

Select ‘Use TCP connection (ControlPort)’
Address: 127.0.0.1 9051

Tor Configuration File:
/home/fitzcarraldo/.vidalia/torrc

Data Directory:
/home/fitzcarraldo/.tor

c) Click on ‘Edit current torrc’ and make it:

# This file was generated by Tor; if you edit it, comments will not be preserved
# The old torrc file was renamed to torrc.orig.1 or similar, and Tor will ignore it
ControlPort 9051
ExitNodes {gb}
Log notice stdout
SocksListenAddress 127.0.0.1
StrictNodes 1

Note that I have specified “{gb}” above so that I am perceived by Web sites to be browsing in the UK even if I am in another country. But you can use a different country code if you want Web sites to perceive you are in another country. For example, “{us}” would make it look as if you are browsing in the USA.

9. Run Polipo:

$ sudo polipo

10. Surf to http://torcheck.xenobite.eu/ to check that you are now using a Tor exit node.

11. Surf to http://whatismyipaddress.com/ to check that your IP address has changed.

# eix sabayon-version
* app-misc/sabayon-version [1]
Available versions: (~)5-r5 (~)7-r1
Homepage: http://www.sabayon.org/
Description: Sabayon System Release virtual package

[1] "sabayon-distro" /var/lib/layman/sabayon-distro

All you need to do in order to cater for this change is the following as root user:

layman -d sabayon
layman -S
layman -a sabayon
layman -a sabayon-distro
eix-update

You only need to add the sabayon-distro overlay if you are a user of Sabayon Linux or want to install any of the distribution-specific ebuilds from it. Of course omit the eix-update command if you do not have the excellent eix utility installed.

From then onwards you can just continue as normal using the usual Portage commands as root user in order to synchronise the main Portage tree and synchronise all the overlays added on your machine:

emerge --sync
layman -S
eix-update

or, if you have an asterisk on its own line in the file /etc/eix-sync.conf then you can replace the above three commands with the following single command:

eix-sync

$ srm mysecrets.doc

You can do the same thing from the KDE GUI very easily by adding the srm command to the KDE Service Menu. To do this, first install KDE Service Menu Editor. Then launch it and do the following:

On the Actions tab:

1. Enter “Securely Delete” (without the quotes) in the Label box.

2. Enter srm -r %u in the Exec box. As you will see if you use the man srm command, the “-r” option means “recursive mode, deletes all subdirectories”. I’ve added this option so that I can securely delete directories and all their contents including sub-directories, as well as individual files.

3. Click on the blank Icon and choose a suitable icon. I selected System Icons > Actions, entered “delete” (without the quotes) in the Search box and selected the big red X (edit-delete) icon.

On the Conditions tab:

4. Against ‘Display the menu for:’, click on All Files.

5. Click OK then Close, and you’re done.

Now all you need to do in KDE is right-click on a file or directory and select Actions > Securely Delete.

The above configuration will only allow you to delete files and directories owned by your user name. However, if you also want to be able to delete files owned by other Linux accounts on your machine then you can modify the command in the KDE Service Menu to prompt you for the root user’s password. To do that, in Step 2 above you would use the following command instead:

kdesu srm -r %u

Now when you right-click on a file or directory, a window will pop up and prompt you to enter the root user’s password.

Of course, if you would prefer to use a different tool to securely delete a file or directory then you could substitute the srm command with e.g. wipe or bcwipe if you have those installed. Use man wipe and man bcwipe after installing them, to check which options you might want to use.

Note that some of your data might be in a temporary (deleted) copy of the file somewhere on the disk. If you installed the secure-delete package then you could use the sfill command to wipe free disk space on any mounted partition, but you would need to be root user to use it. Note also that, if a small file has already acquired a block with your data, no tool can remove that data. Anyway, if you also want to securely wipe any free disk space you can modify the aforementioned command in the KDE Service Menu even further:

kdesu srm -r %u && kdesu sfill directory/mountpoint

I have my /home directory on its own partition, so, in my case the KDE Service Menu entry would be:

kdesu srm -r %u && kdesu sfill /home

This would pop up a window twice prompting you to enter the root user’s password: once for the srm command, and once for the sfill command. Note that the sfill command can take a very, very long time to wipe the free space if it is large (I personally don’t bother using it, as I don’t want my hard disk thrashing for hours). The sfill command works by creating one big file to fill all the free space, then writes to that file using several steps to ensure all the previously-free areas of the disk have had their original contents erased. Once that is completed, the utility then removes the big file, releasing the free disk space.

If you think your swap space contains some of your data, you could use the sswap command — also available if you install the secure-delete package — for secure deletion of the swap space, but you would need to disable your swap space first. I have 4 GB of RAM and my swap partition is virtually never used, so I don’t bother putting my tinfoil hat on in the case of swap either.

One way to enable/disable compositing in KWin 4.7.0 is via System Settings > Desktop Effects > tick/untick ‘Enable desktop effects at startup’ > Apply. This change only takes effect when you restart KDE. A way to toggle compositing on/off is to use a keyboard shortcut. The default keyboard shortcut for this in KWin is Alt-Shift-F12, but KDE on my machine tells me that Qt does not like the use of the Alt key in this shortcut, so I used System Settings > Desktop Effects to change the shortcut to Ctrl+Shift+U, which does toggle compositing on/off.

A toggle icon on the Desktop is another way of achieving the same thing, and is handy if you are using your mouse at the time. Now, a Plasma widget called Toggle-Compositing exists and is a nice way of enabling/disabling compositing at the click of a mouse. However, it has to be compiled — which some users may feel reluctant to do — and it requires the user to know the $KDEDIR, and I’ll wager some users don’t.

Below I describe one way of adding an icon to your Desktop that you can use to toggle compositing in KWin and that does not require any compiling, so it should be more straightforward to implement by a newcomer to KDE.

Use your preferred text editor to create the following Desktop Configuration File named toggle_compositing_in_KWin in your Desktop directory:

[Desktop Entry]
Comment[en_GB]=toggles compositing in KWin
Comment=toggles compositing in KWin
Exec=sh /home/fitzcarraldo/toggle_compositing_in_KWin.sh
GenericName[en_GB]=toggles compositing in KWin
GenericName=toggles compositing in KWin
Icon=kwin
MimeType=
Name[en_GB]=toggle_compositing_in_KWin
Name=toggle_compositing_in_KWin
Path=
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=true
TerminalOptions=
Type=Application
X-DBUS-ServiceName=
X-DBUS-StartupType=none
X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false
X-KDE-Username=

(Replace “fitzcarraldo” with your user name, of course.)

Then create a text file ~/toggle_compositing_in_KWin.sh containing the following:

#!/bin/bash
echo -n "Current compositing state: "
qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin compositingActive
echo -n "Changing compositing state..."
qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin toggleCompositing
echo -n "Current compositing state: "
qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin compositingActive
echo -n "All done. Press ENTER to close window: "
read ENTRY

Finally, open a Konsole window and enter the following command under your own user account:

chmod +x toggle_compositing_in_KWin.sh

And there you have it. You’ll have an icon on your Desktop that looks something like the following:

KWin icon

All you need to do is double-click (or single-click, if you have configured KDE that way) on the icon toggle_compositing_in_KWin on your Desktop and a window will pop-up telling you:

Current compositing state: true
Changing compositing state...
Current compositing state: false
All done. Press ENTER to close window:

To re-enable compositing, just double-click the icon again. And so on.

And now the final touch…

Actually, it’s not necessary to include the last two lines:

echo -n "All done. Press ENTER to close window: "
read ENTRY

in the Bash script above; I just put them in to display the current compositing state. If you omit those two lines then toggling compositing on and off simply becomes a double-click on the icon on the Desktop (or a single click if you have configured KDE that way). In fact, if you also change Terminal=true to Terminal=false and StartupNotify=true to StartupNotify=false in the Desktop Configuration File, then you won’t even see a Konsole window pop-up briefly: compositing will just be toggled on and off seamlessly, so to speak. Just like the keyboard shortcut, only easier to remember!