Solid Smoke

As explained here , I wanted to build RPMs for Qt 4.4 for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Compiling from sources was taking way too much time and was not attracting any developer love. If you want to use Qt 4.4 with RHEL 5, you'll need an updated version of KDevelop ( > 3.4) too. And that requires an updated version of GDB (v6.8). So you'll need to find those RPMs as well. Building an RPM is apparently a complicated process and you'll find lots of articles online (some very dated). But there's a way to reuse the packaging generated for Fedora. That way, you don't have to mess with source archives, patches and write spec files from scratch. Getting the source packages Koji is Fedora Project's build system. You can checkout source packages from http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/ and use it to build on RHEL. Cool, huh? But be aware of possible compatibility issues. Using the search facility of Koji site, I downloaded the following src.rpm files. qt-4.4.0-11.fc10....

In my office, the Linux buzz is growing, with more and more engineers trying their hand at Qt programming. I've been helping people install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL 5) and get started with Qt 4. RHEL 5.1 comes with older (aka stable, or proven , as we like to call in our industry) versions of Qt, KDevelop and GDB. So, to make things easier, I set out to customise an RHEL 5 DVD. My original plan was to create a kick-start file for easier installation. Then I became too ambitious and decided to customise the whole damn thing. After several days of meddling with rpms and xml files, I'm happy to announce SUCCESS!! This post is meant to be a guide to all those brave souls who wish to do the same. Fear not, comrades, it's not as difficult as it looks like. In fact, if you don't want to build any new RPMs, it's quite easy. You can reportedly use a tool called Revisor to easily customise a Fedora / Red Hat distribution. I'm no sure about the effectiveness of th...

KDE 4 has a great collection of small games and educational tools. Unlike the edu-package, the games hadn't got much publicity IMHO. I was testing Fedora 10 Preview Release , and I came across this game called KNetWalk . It's a wonderful game, and I'd strongly recommend you give it a go, if you like those small puzzle-solving games. The objective of this 'build the network' game is to connect all clients to a server (the icon looks more like the Internet) using wires . The screenshot explains it well. You can click on the wires (and the server/clients) to rotate them. In the above screenshot, 3 machines have connectivity and 3 don't. I don't know if the game was in KDE 3.5. Check your KDE to see if it has KNetWalk. The Fedora 10 Preview is looking quite awesome and I can't wait for the final release. Update: It seems the game is theme-able. In the game settings, there was an electronis theme. Instead of building a LAN, you've to connect ICs to a ...

I watched Quantum of Solace a couple of days back. What an ugly movie! I never really liked Bond flicks, but Casino Royale had made me a fan of Daniel Craig. I had high hopes for this one, but it was all too disappointing. I'd rather watch MI 3 than the poorly choreographed action scenes in this one. The story line is pretty lame and predictable, the action scenes are shaky and badly edited, the bond girl can't act and there are boring chase scenes scattered all over! Casino Royale had realistic fight scenes. This one has very physical action sequences too, but they are more like cut-scenes and are terrible. The chase Bond gets chased on land, water and of course air! The movie opens with a lame car chase, has the all too familiar speed boat chase and an unimpressive airplane chase, with a stupidifying parachute deployment. Overall, I'd give this one 1/5. It's more of a terrible edit-job than a movie.

I've never been an ardent temple goer. Till recently, my visits to the temple coincided with my birthdays. Yup, that's almost once a year.. So, I was not too enthusiastic when ma family planned a trip to Sri Mookambika temple. But the promised trip to Kudajadri wooed me in. My sister and her husband did all the planning and route preparation. I did absolutely no research or enquiries on the planned route or the destinations.. lazy me! അതെ, നാണമില്ല എന്ന് തന്നെ കൂട്ടിക്കോളൂ.. ;-) We reached Kollur (that's in Karnataka) one evening, and the very next morning had a visit to the temple. The temple near the Sowparnika river is quite serene and peaceful (thanks to proper crowd management). No photos to publish though.. എന്നാലും, ചെരുപ്പിട്ട പശുവിനെ കണ്ടിട്ടില്ലെങ്കില്‍, ഇതാ ഒരെണ്ണം! Murudeshwar After the temple visit, we hired a Scorpio and sped off to Murudeshwar . Murudeshwar is a new generation temple-cum-tourist spot! There are impressive constructions around the small tem...

The Mahindra & Mahindra Jeep is a very popular vehicle around here. The Police use it, and so do the Miltary (at least they used to). The M&M Jeep can be found almost everywhere in Kerala (and throughout India, I'm told), and is a hot favourite in high-range areas. I had a trip to കുടജാദ്രി (Kudajadri or Kodachadri) a couple of days back, and now the Jeep has a new ardent fan - me! The Jeep is a famous off-road vehicle. I've been impressed by it's performance and the so called hanuman gear (in the 4x4 version) during our trip to Paithalmala last month. But this was a whole new experience for me. The road was virtually non-existant, and our 2x2 Jeep did the 10km climb with ease. It was rocking journey, quite literally. Dinesh, our driver (ഒരു നല്ല മലയാളി), told us that the Jeep is quite rugged and the only maintenance it requires are the occasional broken leaf springs and pierced fuel tanks. The previous day, we had asked the driver of a Mahindra Scorpio if he...