Touchpad Click and Edge Scrolling broken in Fedora 11?

In Fedora 11, default mouse settings (with regards to laptop and notebook touchpads) have been slightly changed. In previous versions of Fedora, tapping the touchpad to “click” and scrolling using the edge of touchpads was enabled by default. In Fedora 11, these options are now disabled by default. To re-enable these options:

1. Open the Mouse Preferences dialog either by choosing  System > Preferences > Mouse from the Fedora Main Menu or by running the following command from a terminal:

gnome-mouse-properties

2. In the Mouse Preferences dialog, choose the Touchpad tab, and enable the options you desire.

Mouse Preferences Dialog

Control+Alt+Backspace shortcut does not restart the X server in Fedora 11

Note: This post documents a change that was introduced in Fedora 11 (F11). Special thanks to who-t for his help on this one

Previously, pressing the key combination Ctrl+Alt+Backspace forced the X.org server (the open source implementation of X11) to instantly restart, returning the user to the login screen. This functionality is useful on unstable systems where the X server frequently hangs, however, if the shortcut is inadvertently invoked, the user will lose anything not saved to disk.   In the version of X.org shipped in Fedora 11, the decision was made in upstream to make the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace shortcut disabled by default. To re-enable this option (on the Gnome Desktop):

1.  Open the Keyboard Preferences dialog either by choosing  System > Preferences > Keyboard from the Fedora Main Menu or by running the following command from a terminal:

gnome-keyboard-properties

2.  In the Keyboard Preferences dialog, choose the Layouts tab (labeled 1 in the screenshot below) and press the Layout Options button (labeled 2 in the screenshot below) to bring up the Keyboard Layout Options dialog.

Keyboard Preferences dialog

3.  In the Keyboard Layout Options dialog, unfold the tree item “Key sequence to kill the X server” (labeled 3 in the screenshot below), and mark the checkbox “Control + Alt + Backspace” (labeled 4 in the screenshot below)

Keyboard Layout Options dialog

Update: X input hacker, who-t (Peter Hutterer) on the differences between Ubuntu and Fedora on this change:

The Ubuntu “dontzap” command has no effect on Fedora.

There are two parts to zapping: one is the permission in the server (Option DontZap) and one is the trigger (the Terminate_Server XKB symbol). To zap, you have to invoke the trigger and you must be allowed to zap the server.

In Ubuntu, the server by default does not allow zapping, but the trigger is in the default keymaps. Thus, to enable zapping it needs to be enabled in the configuration file (and the server requires a restart).

In Fedora, the server by default allows zapping, but the trigger is not in the default keymaps. Thus, to enable zapping it needs to be enabled in the keymap. This can be done at runtime.

Doing the equivalent to “dontzap -disable” in Fedora explicitly enables an option that’s enabled by default anyway, so it has no effect.

10 inkscape tutorials

shameless crosspost from inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com =)

With the readership of the inkscape tutorials weblog steadily increasing over the past year, there are many great tutorials deep in the blog archives that newer readers may not have discovered yet. Therefore to celebrate the forthcoming milestone of 1.5 million page views of this site, we have decided to list the top 10 inkscape tutorials that have been featured on the inkscape tutorials blog to date.

Text and Simple Styling An awesome tutorial from Troy Sobotka detailing how to create a colourful outset text effect.

Creating a Business Card Template and Basic Business Card with Inkscape Create a business card template using inkscape, and learn how to populate it with a simple business card design.

Shattered, Smashed and Grungy Text in Inkscape A step by step on creating a smashed and grungy text effect using inkscape..

Create a Lightbulb Icon that follows the tango! guidelines. This tutorial provides a detailed how-to on creating a lightbulb icon that uses the tango! icon set guidelines.

Create an impressive stick man cartoon character / avatar A super detailed guide to creating a stick man cartoon character using inkscape.

Draw A Realistic Vector Guitar in Inkscape In this tutorial, Nick Roberts demonstrates in detail how to illustrate a “Fender Stratocaster” type guitar. The final result is stunning, and the author has detailed the steps superbly with many super useful screen shots.

Creating a Coffee Cup using inkscape Another detailed and impressive tutorial from the vectortuts website. This tutorial demonstrates how to draw a coffee cup using inkscape.

How to make RPG map elements with inkscape. This is a great tutorial on creating RPG map symbols using inkscape. The tutorial outlines a workflow for creating a simple jailhouse RPG element.

chrome text effect From the same author as the “Text and Simple Styling tutorial”, Here is a another that demonstrates how to create chrome text effect using inkscape.

sticker with a folded / dog ear edge here is a cool tutorial for creating a simple sticker / decal with a folded down edge.

Digg this! | reddit

twitterverse: a diagram

twitterverse is a neat little diagram that lists and categorises major twitter apps and services.

[twitterverse] via beth’s blog

Diary of an App Store Reviewer

A cute satirical piece from John Gruber on the farce that is the Apple App Store review process.

[link]

Inkscape Business Card Tutorial

Here is a tutorial that i whipped up for worldlabel.com (excerpt is from inkcsapetutorials.wordpress.com)

Here is a great tutorial for creating business cards using Inkscape. This tutorial has two main sections.

The first details how to create a printer ready template from a PDF guide using clones and guides. Using clones in this fashion to create a template in inkscape is awesome; once the template is created correctly, the changes that are made to the original populate thoughout the rest of the tempate!

The second section provides a detailed process for creating a basic business card (with a nifty pinstripe background). This portion of the tutorial is a great introduction into basic fill / stroke techniques, pattern fills and text editing and kerning.

This tutorial is published by worldlabel.com. Worldlabel are quite active over at the open clip art library producing the “Clipart of the Week” and have also donated a substantial amount of public domain clipart to the library.

Create a Lightbulb Icon that follows the tango! guidelines.

Note: I originally wrote this post for the inkcsape tutorials blog, but i liked this tutorial enough to do a shameless crosspost here on my personal blog.

Here is another great inkscape tutorial from vectortuts, demonstrating how to create a vector lightbulb icon within the tango! icon guidelines.

This tutorial is a great overview on using inkscape for drawing icons.  For an overview on managing your workflow in inkscape while designing icons, see the previously posted tutorial, “creating icons with inkscape – a basic workflow.”

Also, be sure to check out the vectortuts website. Even though there are only a handful of inkscape tutorials posted there, if you have intermediate to advanced inkscape skills, you may be able to apply some of the techniques from the other tutorials hosted there.

Note: This tutorial only demonstrates the process to create the light bulb icon above. The image below is a random subset of images that are in the tango! icon library. To get the tango! icons, including icons in the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format, visit the download page on the tango! website.

fedora 11 release notes test build

Work has started on the overhaul of the fedora release notes in preparation for the Fedora 11 release later in the year.  I have created a work in progress build of the release notes, based on the current content outlined in the release notes beats (basically the draft texts that go together to make the release notes.)

The test build can be found on my fedora people hosting here:

http://ryanlerch.fedorapeople.org/Release_Notes/

That page links to the built copies of the release notes (in HTML, HTML-Single, PDF, and a Desktop RPM) for anyone to view. I haven’t checked the source of this work into the Release-Notes git repo yet, but that will be happening soon. Please send any comments / ideas  on the fedora release notes to the fedora-docs mailing list.

meh

meh. bored. need to post more tutorials to inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com.

bah

publican 0.39 released

Publican, a single source publishing tool based on DocBook XML has been updated to version 0.39. Be sure to check out the new SELinux User guide for the end result of a publican book.

The Publican 0.39 package is still in testing Fedora 9 and Fedora 10, so try it out, and leave some postive khama:

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/publican-0.39-0.fc10,publican-fedora-0.16-0.fc10

https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/publican-0.39-0.fc9,publican-fedora-0.16-0.fc9