Enabling iwd on Fedora 33

If you are looking to give iwd a try on Fedora it is a simple matter of installing the package, telling NetworkManager to use the (experimental) iwd backend, and masking wpa_supplicant so it isn't started by anything else at boot:

$ sudo dnf install iwd
$ echo -e "[device]\nwifi.backend=iwd" | sudo tee /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-iwd.conf
$ sudo systemctl mask wpa_supplicant

Now reboot. You may need to input your WiFi credentials again. NetworkManager will handle starting the respective supplicant services as needed at boot so explictly enabling them is not necessary.

If you want to switch back to wpa_supplicant, simply delete the configuration file we made and unmask wpa_supplicant:

$ sudo rm /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-iwd.conf
$ sudo systemctl unmask wpa_supplicant

Now reboot.

Color fringing with fonts in Fedora 29

So Microsoft joined the OIN, which has had knockdown effects on the Linux community, including using FreeType's ClearType subpixel font rendering by default in Fedora. For some reason, they chose not to enable any kind of LCD filter at the same time, which can lead to rainbow color fringing around text. Fortunately enabling an LCD filter in FreeType is easy:

$ ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/11-lcdfilter-default.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/

No more ExactImage

I've grown tired of trying to package ExactImage for Fedora as the Enlightenment bindings it uses seem to no longer be packaged. As of 0.30.0, pdfocr uses the easier-to-package hocr-tools library for wrangling hocr files. The copr repository has been updated accordingly.

I'm feeling [Fedora] 22

I've updated my relevant Copr repositories to provide Fedora 22 packages. The quakespasm, yquake2 (repository for the Yamagi Quake II engine), pdftools, and msp430-development-tools (updated to the latest versions of everything, except msp430flasher as the latest installer doesn't seem to work) repos have been updated. Maybe next time I'll have this done before release.

Quick and dirty PDF OCR in Fedora 21

Every so often you wind up with a scanned PDF of mostly text. Performing OCR allows you to both search and select text in the document. Usually for one-off scans, a quick OCR is sufficient (no training, no skew correction, etc.). For those cases, I usually recommend pdfocr. Unfortunately for Fedora users, pdfocr uses PDFtk (which Fedora does not package due to it's dependence on gcj), and ExactImage, which no longer has a maintainer. Read on for a quick work around.

MSP430 GCC 3.2.3

A couple of people have asked about version 3.2.3 of the official TI version of GCC for the MSP430. The source link was broken, but it's fixed now. Updated versions of the msp430-gcc-support-files, msp430-elf-binutils, msp430-elf-gcc, and msp430-elf-gdb packages are now available in my Copr repository. And yes, I plan on tracking TI releases in that repo.

Updating Seagate Hard Drive Firmware from Fedora 20

Recently I've grown tired of seeing constant warnings in my S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic information about outdated firmware on my pair of Seagate Barracuda drives (of the 7200.12 iteration, which according to the internet, should have lost my data and caught fire about five times over now). I've updated firmware on multiple SSDs, but never a traditional spinning rust drive. The process is a little klunky, but feel free to play along!

Updating to CUDA 6.5 on Fedora 20

Assuming you installed CUDA 6 following my previous guide, updating to 6.5 is pretty simple, first, remove the old (Fedora 19) repo:

# yum remove cuda-repo-fedora19

Now, update to the new Fedora 20 CUDA 6.5 repo:

# rpm -ivh http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/fedora20/x86_64/cuda-repo-fedora20-6.5-14.x86_64.rpm

Update CUDA (still haven't fixed the EULA spam):

# yum update cuda cuda-cross

Finally, update the paths you export to the following:

export PATH=/usr/local/cuda-6.5/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/cuda-6.5/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Note for users of the RPM Fusion 'akmod-nvidia' package: The above will update your driver to the Nvidia version of 'akmod-nvidia' (340.29-2 at the time of this writing) unless you are running the newer version from the RPM Fusion testing repo. This was fine with me. I do not know if it is possible to successfully use CUDA 6.5 with an older driver.

Quake is forever

While I was figuring out how to get gdb for the msp430 to build in Copr, I played around with packaging something simpler, Quakespasm.

While I'm not a big gamer, the Quake series (at least up through Quake III) has always been a favorite (see also: Wolfenstein 3D, Return to Castle Wolfenstein). While the more "modern" Darkplaces Quake engine is already packaged for Fedora, Quakespasm feels much truer to the original. Follow along for a quick setup guide for Quakespasm on Fedora 20.

MSP430F5529 LaunchPad 'Project0.2' - GDB on Fedora 20

When I initially promised "more depth" on mspdebug, I honestly believed it would be more user friendly. But frankly, the more I played with it, the less I wanted to use it as a debugger. Fortunately, it can function as a bridge to GDB which is a much more pleasant debugger to work with. Getting mspdebug to play well with GDB was not straightforward, but I'm pleased to say I have a solution that works.

Network Audio Streaming with PulseAudio

I had been trying to come up with a way to get sound from my PC (and laptop) to a stereo for awhile. Recently, when the onboard audio on my desktop's motherboard died (thanks Gigabyte!), the situation became somewhat more urgent.

As I grabbed a USB audio interface as a temporary solution to my desktop's now dead audio, a thought came to my mind. Why don't I take one of the ARM boxes I have sitting in a junk drawer, hook this USB interface to it, and stream my desktop's sound to it using PulseAudio? So that's what I did.

MSP430F5529 LaunchPad 'Project0' on Fedora 20

Recently TI launched another MSP430 LaunchPad, the MSP430F5529. While the "Project0"  (caution, PDF link) tutorial they provide is great if you intend to use Windows and CCS, it falls short if you intend to use mspgcc and Linux. This guide will hopefully fill in the blanks for doing the Project0 tutorial on Fedora 20.

Setting up Epson USB Scanners on Fedora 20

Setting up scanners on Linux is significantly easier than it used to be. In my experience, most USB scanners are mostly plug-and-play. Epson however seems to have not fully embraced 'the Linux way', but still provides the tools necessary to use their scanners (as well as printer / scanner all-in-ones) in Linux.

Compiling Wine on Fedora 20

If you are the type of person to compile Wine yourself, you may have noticed an issue trying to follow the (admittedly somewhat dated) instructions. Specifically, when installing those packages, you find yourself greeted with a big ol' yum transaction failure like the following:

Transaction check error:
  file /usr/share/isdn/dest.cdb conflicts between attempted installs of isdn4k-utils-3.2-93.fc20.i686 and isdn4k-utils-3.2-93.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_calc_keytag.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_key_list_key.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_key_list_key_count.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_key_list_new.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_key_list_pop_key.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_key_list_push_key.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_rdf_print.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_resolver_print.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_rr_list_print.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_rr_print.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_verify_rrsig_dsa.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_verify_rrsig_rsamd5.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_verify_rrsig_rsasha1.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64
  file /usr/share/man/man3/ldns_zone_print.3.gz from install of ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.i686 conflicts with file from package ldns-1.6.16-6.fc20.x86_64

Compiling CudaMiner on Fedora 20

Are you interested in getting into the scrypt based cryptocurrency mining game, but only have a lowly Nvidia card? Lucky for you, it is entirely possible to mine scrypt based coins (eg. Litecoin, Feathercoin) using an Nvidia GPU. CudaMiner makes it possible.

Setting up CUDA on Fedora 20

Installing Nvidia's CUDA on Fedora is pretty simple, but the official documentation (warning, PDF link) falls a little short if you are using the Nvidia drivers packaged by RPM Fusion. If you are using the officially packaged Nvidia drivers, just follow the official docs, otherwise follow along after the break.