PHP4 RPMs for Fedora Core 4
EDIT (Dec 19, 2005): I have written a formal guide on PHP4 on FC4.
As a followup to my previous post about PHP4 on FC4, I decided to abandon PHP5 altogether. I spent some time to try and get the PHP4 src.rpm from FC3 to compile correctly in FC4. As it turned out neither the GCC4 nor the GCC3.2 included in FC4 would compile everything properly. So I decided to try GCC3.4 (which I installed from source long ago when first tweaking with FC4).
Anyways it worked. I have 15 RPM files which I don’t think I will upload unless someone really cares for them. I’ve only done this in the process of seeing if there is an advantage in using my own compiled RPM’s as opposed to using the FC3 RPM’s. Right now I don’t think that there is.
Recommended Method: In the end if you force uninstall all PHP5 RPM files in FC4, and then you install the FC3 PHP4 RPM’s, it does work.
[root]# rpm -e php-imap php-ldap php-mysql php-pear php
Install any PHP4 RPM you want from Fedora Core 3 Updates. Make sure to install the php and php-pear RPM files together.
Quake 4 for Linux
Linux gaming for the most part is non existent. There are a handful of games, but for all the bells and whistles that the gaming industry puts forth, not much of it makes it to Linux. Activision is a good exception to this, I’ve followed their gaming engines since Quake II in the late 90’s. It was with the release of Quake III, a fully native Linux version was available. A full featured FPS (first person shooter) that was a commercial release really showed off the potential of Linux gaming. Activision has designed their gaming engines such that ports to other operating systems (Linux, MacOS, Nintendo, etc.) should be much easier. Which is in their best interest money-wise – Licensing!!! Many games, Caste Wolfenstein, Elite Force and Doom 3 to name a few have all been released as such.
Quake 4 was released only 2 days ago (Oct 18) and the Linux installer is already available. The best thing about this deployment method is that if you buy the Windows version, the the Linux installer is available for download and uses the data files from your Quake 4 windows CD’s. Basically 2 for the price of one. Id Software and Activision really get a thumbs up for open minded design.
Now if only the rest of the gaming industry could follow suit. But for a incredibly small Linux gaming market and for the relatively higher development costs and minimal returns, I seriously doubt that Linux games will improve any where in near future.
Canon S500 in Fedora Core
I had written a really simple camera mini-guide for how I use my Canon S500 digital camera in Fedora Core 3. The other night I decided to update and make sure everything still works in Fedora Core 4 - and it did.
Guides like these, to me, are almost not necessary. I would tell someone, just make sure you have Gnome and gPhoto and your USB setup and your camera will “automagically” work. But that advice, to me, does not seem very tangible. In the Windows world, people are reassured by the fact that their hardware or peripheral comes with an installation CD. That seldom happens in the Linux world. People who are unsure whether or not hardware works correctly with Linux need some sort of valid proof that there is Linux support - this always seems to come from the community as opposed to the manufacturer. Personally, I research Linux compatibility for all of my hardware prior to purchasing. Guides like the one listed above, I hope, make someone feel more certain about their purchase.
MPlayer from CVS in FC4
I’ve been following along with the improvements made by the MPlayer development team through their mailing list. When Fedora Core 4 came out there were some (I think many) issues with the choice to use GCC4 (the GNU Compiler). Many applications, such as MPlayer, were not yet supported. There were patches from other groups, but the MPlayer team did not officially support it. As usual I compiled from source, but I used GCC3.2. I’ve never had any problems.
A week ago I pulled a CVS snapshot through their website and decided to compile and test a developmental version to see anything new. I installed along side my current version of MPlayer v1.0pre7. (I used --prefix=/opt/mplayercvs/ during the configure step.) It all seemed to work perfectly with GCC4. Some basic things I noticed were better support for some media formats and full support for many output plugins that didn’t work with the GCC3.2 workaround. Finally they also have ported the GUI to GTK2. The forever old (and still very poor) gui was using GTK1.2 and has now been deprecated. Although I don’t see any new features in the GUI, it is nice to finally have a consistent GTK/Gnome interface - fonts, themes and all.
Basically good progress, but not recommended for average users. I am looking forward to the new release, even though lately it seems Xine has seemed like a better alternative.
Posted in: FC4, Multimedia, Software,
Network Storage Device
As many have emphasized, Linux is exceptional in the server market. For consumers however, many do not realize servers can be very small scale and reduced to embedded devices. I’ve been working on a Linksys Network Storage Device for my home lan. Basically the device is a Linux server running on 133Mhz ARM Processor with 32MB of ram. However it comes with a 100Mbit network port and 2 individual USB2.0 ports. You can plug in harddrives or media devices into the USB ports and once you add it to your network you have a shared harddrive. Its a low power device which is very good alternative to building a full server doing the same work and much more affordable.
The folks at nslu2-linux.org have put together multiple extra software packages and guides on how to do much much more than just a file server. Some examples would be a Web server, Software Revision control (SVN), TV media recorder, iTunes music server, Windows Domain Controller, and the list goes on. My intended functions right now are a LAN DNS Server, basic webserver, revision control, NTP (network time server) on top of file serving. My idea is to relagate some functions I have on my computer and others on my network into 1 primary (low power) machine.
It’s not up and running yet. I found information to over clock the CPU to 266Mhz, and soder in a RS232 serial port so I can see booting information and access a command prompt. Lots to play with - more information when it’s all hooked up.