Tip: Fixing xorg-server 1.7.6 keyboard and mouse issues on Gentoo

I came across a weird issue on my Gentoo box: both keyboard and mouse weren't working. I immediately though of hal and X11...

A quick stroll to the Gentoo Forums pointed to x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard, x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse and x11-drivers/xf86-input-evdev has the culprits!

Here's how to fix the issue:

1. $ su
2. # eix-sync
3. # emerge -1 $(qlist -IC x11-drivers)

This will rebuild X11 drivers in you system and have you using your keyboard and mouse again. If you don't have qlist installed in your system just emerge app-portage/portage-utils.

Now wasn't that fun?

;)

HowTo: Upgrade FreeBSD 7.2 to 7.3

Disclaimer: this post is for those that instead of using FreeBSD's excellent documentation maintain the bad habit of googling for things already covered in the project's official documentation. This is more or less a copy-paste of the FreeBSD 7.3-RELEASE Announcement instructions for upgrading 7.2 to 7.3.

These are needed steps to upgrade, through the binary upgrade method, the kernel and userland utilities to 7.3-RELEASE:

1. % su
2. # freebsd-update upgrade -r 7.3-RELEASE
3. # freebsd-update install
4. # shutdown -r now
   
5. % su
6. # freebsd-update install
7. # shutdown -r now
   

On step 1 we've started of by becoming the superuser. Step 2 initiates the freebsd-update utility pointing the upgrade to 7.3-RELEASE, after that we proceed with the installation of the kernel on step 3.

Upon rebooting the new kernel is enabled and we move into step 6. Here we end the upgrade process by updating the userland utilities.

That's it!

If you found this post useful that's actually a bad news: you aren't reading the project's official documentation! So please point to http://www.freebsd.org and educate yourself on FreeBSD ;)

Tip: Dealing with virtualbox-ose PUEL license on Gentoo

I came across a peculiar message from portage when trying to install virtualbox-ose in Gentoo:

1. $ su
2. # eix-sync
3. # emerge --tree --ask --verbose virtualbox-ose

These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:

Calculating dependencies... done!

!!! All ebuilds that could satisfy "~app-emulation/virtualbox-ose-additions-3.1.4" have been masked.
!!! One of the following masked packages is required to complete your request:
- app-emulation/virtualbox-ose-additions-3.1.4 (masked by: PUEL license(s))
A copy of the 'PUEL' license is located at '/usr/portage/licenses/PUEL'.


(dependency required by "app-emulation/virtualbox-ose-3.1.4" [ebuild])
(dependency required by "virtualbox-ose" [argument])

For more information, see the MASKED PACKAGES section in the emerge
man page or refer to the Gentoo Handbook.

The solution is to add the PUEL license to the /etc/portage/package.license file:

1. # echo "app-emulation/virtualbox-ose-additions PUEL" >> /etc/portage/package.license
2. # echo "app-emulation/virtualbox-ose PUEL" >> /etc/portage/package.license

Now can finally get to emerge VirtualBox.

As a side note you can also use /etc/make.conf and make use of the ACCEPT_LICENSE variable. For instances adding ACCEPT_LICENSE="*" to /etc/make.conf unmasks all licenses. Alternatively you can unmask licenses one by one.

More information can be obtained reading make.conf and portage's man pages.

Tip: Dealing with nvidia-driver-195.22 on FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE

I haven't migrated to FreeBSD 8.0 as I came across visual artefacts while running 8.0, nvidia-driver-195.22 and Enemy Territory on a test install.

To update my installed ports I use for the most part csup to update the ports collection and sysutils/portmaster to actually update the ports with new versions.

Recently nvidia-driver-195.22 hit the Ports tree and upon running portmaster -a I found out that Nvidia's latest driver version requires FreeBSD-STABLE or FreeBSD-CURRENT. Guess who's running RELEASE?

Symptoms:

• % su
• # csup -L 2 -h cvsup2.uk.freebsd.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile
• # portmaster -L

===>>> nvidia-driver-185.18.36
===>>> New version available: nvidia-driver-195.22
===>>> This port is marked IGNORE
===>>> requires fairly recent FreeBSD-STABLE, or FreeBSD-CURRENT

• # portmaster -a

===>>> Launching child to update nvidia-driver-185.18.36 to nvidia-driver-195.22

===>>> Port directory: /usr/ports/x11/nvidia-driver
===>>> This port is marked IGNORE
===>>> requires fairly recent FreeBSD-STABLE, or FreeBSD-CURRENT

===>>> If you are sure you can build it, remove the
IGNORE line in the Makefile and try again.

===>>> Update for nvidia-driver-185.18.36 failed
===>>> Aborting update

Solution:

• # cd /var/db/pkg/nvidia-driver-185.18.36/
• # touch +IGNOREME
• # portmaster -a

===>>> Launching child to update nvidia-driver-185.18.36 to nvidia-driver-195.22

===>>> nvidia-driver-185.18.36 has an +IGNOREME file

===>>> Update anyway? [n]

• answer "n"
  

Now portmaster -a ignores updates to the nvidia-driver port until the issue is fixed or I move to 8.0 ;)