Solr gem and xml ruby gem How it matters

If you use solr-ruby gem, you should be well aware that Solr attempts to create an XML doc from the provided doc-hash. It first attempts to use ‘xml/libxml’, which if not available, falls back to REXML. It is recommended to use libxml.

All you need to do is


gem install libxml-ruby

If you are lucky enough, that’s all for you. However, many a times we face issues like


Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing libxml-ruby:
	ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/usr/bin/ruby extconf.rb
checking for socket() in -lsocket... no
checking for gethostbyname() in -lnsl... yes
checking for atan() in -lm... no
checking for atan() in -lm... yes
checking for inflate() in -lz... no
checking for inflate() in -lzlib... no
checking for inflate() in -lzlib1... no
checking for inflate() in -llibz... no
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.

If this is the case, you should install zlib-devel and libxml2-devel packages.


yum -y install zlib-devel
yum -y install libxml2-devel
gem install libxml-ruby

That sorts it all. You are good to go

Google Talk Invisible in Kopete

About three years back, Siddharth Upmanyu found a way of getting invisible in Pidgin, which is demonstrated in my earlier blog post about Invisible Mode for Google Talk. The method is raw and simple, but looks geeky. Couple of days back, Nilesh Govindrajan looked upon the idea and came up with a way to get this done, right inside Kopete instant messenger. He has demonstrated the method at this blog post on iTech7. This method looks great to me, although i haven’t tried it myself.
If you people find any bugs or suggestions, do respond here. Also, i would like to see more people coming up with new ways of tweaking other popular messengers like Google Talk, Pidgin, Telepathy to provide a reliable and better invisible mechanism in Google Talk (XMPP) protocol.

Fedora 13 local service hangs while startup

Things go real funny at times. I downloaded the Fedora 13 i386 the day it was released. I purchased a DVD so that i can burn it and install and experience the few Fedora. I haven’t upgraded it since Fedora 10. So, i was under the illusion that i had burned the DVD (which i ddn
t) and while trying to install, it did nothing. So, i underwent this perception that my DVD-RW is bad and i must get it replaced. Today evening i found out that what i was trying was to install Fedora 13 from a blank DVD. LoL 🙂 Anyways, so i burned it down and tried installing.

Unfortunately the DVD had some scratches so i decided to go to online repos for the RPMs and other things. I installed Fedora from the online repo at http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/Fedora/releases/13/Fedora/i386/os/ and i did a minimal installation with LXDE as desktop environment. After the installation, i found out that the service “local” could not be initiated, and the system just seems to hang at that moment. A quick google did not yield any significant result. So i did a bit of R&D on it.

As per my online research, the “local” service in Fedora 13 is a service which kicks off your X-server. So, if the “local” service is not initiating, it means there is an issue with your X-server. In my case, the possible reason could be a conflict in LXDE Environment or something. The immediate workaround is to get into terminal by CTRL+ALT+F2. CTRL+ALT+F1 is to return to X-server. This key combination did some help in my case, by allowing me to get into the terminal, but nevertheless that did not solved my actual problem.

So, i had to reinstall Fedora 13 using the online repo i mentioned earlier, and as i am writing this blog, the installation is going on. ~~Hopefully, it will get over in next ten minutes and i can see my favorite GNOME environment again. Just in case, something weird happens, i will update this post.~~ The installation went great and right now i am on Fedora 13, GNOME desktop.

Also there are some interesting things you can do while Fedora 13 is being installed. Like reading XKCD 🙂

Also, if you have more information about the “local” service in Fedora 13, kindly inform me using the comment form below. I will update the post accordingly.

Mere dost bhi hacker

Was sitting idle and then thought of this song for one of my hac0r friend

—————

kabhie hum hacker nikle
kabhie doosre hacker

kya kare zindagi isko hum jo mile.. isko hack kartey gaye…. meri zindagi “life of a procastinator”… mere dost bhi hacker……

kabhie zindagi se maanga HDD mei google ka database le aao
kabhie USB de ke kaha… sabka CC and CVV number isme daalo
hacking ke sab kareene … hai hamesha se kamine
kya kare.. zindagi.. isko hum jo mile…
isko hack kartey gaye…

jiska bhi database choda…. ander se aur nikla…
Microsoft waale to hadd hai, Linux ka server nikla

Kabhie hum hacker nikle… kabhie doosre attacker
attacker….. attacker
mere dost bhi hacker
meri zindagi hacker
ek PP se dosti thi…. ye huzoor bhi hacker

OpenSource alternate to Dreamweaver

Of lately, i was thinking of switching to open source alternative for DreamWeaver, and i found out Aptana. Aptana is an eclipse based IDE that provides a lot of benefits which but obviously includes being the powers of opensource and freeware. Aptana comes in two flavors – a stand alone IDE and an Eclipse Plugin. You can install either of the two depending on your needs. Personally i dont like Ecipse, so i decided to go for stand alone IDE. You might want to check out the download page for Aptana

After installing Aptana, you need to install CFEclipse plugin for providing ColdFusion support in Aptana.

Installing CFEclipse in Aptana

Download the latest version from the archived software update site: http://www.cfeclipse.org/update/
Unzip the archive file. You should get a folder called “org.cfeclipse.cfml.update.release”.
In Aptana, go through the usual procedure to add an update site (Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install -> Search for new features to install).
Click on New Local Site…
Choose the folder that you extracted from the zip file (e.g. the location of “org.cfeclipse.cfml.update.release”).
Click Select.
Change the name to something more reasonable such as CFEclipse Local Install.
Click OK and then click Finish.
Follow the installation procedure and prompts… (I am sure you can handle it from now on).

Pretty Simple. That’s it. And now we have an open source alternative for DreamWeaver that is much better than the original one.

KDE 4.0

Every cloud has silver lining, but i think this one has something more than just linings, it seems to have silver spots in it. Well, i am talking about the much awaited KDE 4.0 which was released just two days back. It is a free sunday here in India, and i decided to have a peep into what it looks like.

The Installation
The installtion of KDE 4.0 on my OpenSUSE 10.3 was not a big trouble, with the One Click Install for openSUSE 10.3. However of all the packages selected, the digiKam was not installed successfully.

The actual Experience
I logged in again and switched to the KDE 4.0 session, and it was just amazing. With the new applications like Plasma, KickOff, Widgets and KRunner, it seemed to be fun and a completely new UI for me.

This is the dashboard view of Plasma. So, instead of the old, “Show Desktop”, you can just switch to dashboard by pressing CTRL+F12 and manage your desktop while letting other applications function.

The screen grid utility is among the other utilities that make the UI very calm and comfortable.

The issues
However there are several issues regarding the use of KDE 4.0. Just like every other Linux application, in its first release, it is quite buggy. It seemed like on every click that i made, the KDE 4.0 crashed. Sometimes, while switched to the dashboard view, the system seems to be not responding. You can see the videos being played in the background, but you can’t revert back to the main UI. The Compiz-Fusion that i had installed, seemed to be non functional, and many more. The support documentation is also not enough to explain these issues pretty well.

I think there is still a lot of time, when it will be issue less, and as successful as KDE 3.5.