Short Tip: Get file extension in Shell script

The command basename is often used to extract the real file name without the file type specific file extension:

$ basename thisfile.txt .txt
thisfile

Now sometimes you need it the other way around, you might want to have the file extension. There are of course hundreds of ways to do so, but I found this one appealing since it also shows how the command awk works (which I should learn a bit better I think):

$ echo "thisfile.txt"|awk -F . '{print $NF}'
txt

The “-F” marks the delimiter, “$NF” means the last field generated. Seems to be a pretty straightforward tool.
On a total unrelated note I really like the source code post style of WordPress.

Smolt one step further towards other distributions; KnetworkManager devel version for NM 0.7 available

Smolt got a new project home page outside the Fedora project, making a step further towards other distributions. Also, KNetworkManager, the KDE tool for NetworkManager, was released in a new development branch which works with the new NM 0.7.

Smolt got a new home

Smolt, the hardware statistics program originally developed for the Fedora project now got a new home outside the Fedora project: smolts.org. This is one further step towards the adoption of Smolt by other distributions: as a real cross distribution tool it the statistics should not be hosted at a distribution specific address. Rahul Sundaram made the announcement and also mentioned that OpenSuse will ship Smolt with the next version of its distribution. Unfortunately he doesn’t mention if it’s activation will be offered during a default installation. And since it is not mentioned I actually doubt it. Still, it is a first step and if everything works out we might see Smolt in the OpenSuse installation routine in future releases.

I hope that other distributions jump on the waggon as well. Especially Ubuntu could benefit the community by offering Smolt during installation time – or by simply providing packages for the people who are interested. And it would be a good way to replace the current Ubuntu Hardware Database which is now broken for months.

Remember that Smolt does not only help to identify which hardware is used by also helps to estimate the amount of Linux users out there.

KNetworkManager devel version for NM 0.7

A pre-release version of NetworkManager (NM) 0.7 was included recently with the Fedora 8 branch to ship NM 0.7 with Fedora 8 final. But unfortunately NM 0.7 broke a set of APIs. While the GNOME gui for NM (nm-applet) was quickly update by the NM guys (who maintain both) the KDE GUI tool (KNetworkManager) developer Helmut Schaa mentioned that he might need some more time to release a 0.7 capable version.
However, only days after that note he released a first development version of KNetworkManager in KDE’s SVN which compiles and works against NM 0.7. This is a great step – keep in mind that Helmut Schaa in the meantime also improved the “old” KNetworkManager to include more support for encrypted enterprise networks.

Of course the new version is still in early development and does not support all features of NM 0.7. Also, there are several regressions due to the port at the moment which will be smoothed out over time. As an example, the configuration of wireless connections is not ready yet, and the VPN and PPP parts are not even started yet. Also, the optimal gui solution for NM’s multiple device support has still to be found. But a first version is out there and I’m very confident that we soon will see fixes and improvements of it.

Showstoppers list for KDE’s 4.0 Beta 3 release

The KDE 4.0 Beta 3 release was shifted to October 10. Additionally the release team specified the KDE parts which have to be ready at the beta release date or which might otherwise be a showstopper.

Sebastian Kügler announced the new release date together with the Beta 3 Release Goals some days ago. The idea is to have a central place to collect information about the potentially troublesome areas within the KDE 4.0 development and also to discuss and draw attention to existing issues.

And while Dolphin is mostly in shape and the Plasma team already proved often enough that they are trustworthy, other areas might do need some more work. Printing for KDE 4.0 is one of these areas: there is not even an API yet decided for the new printing support, and of course the applications have to be ported to the new API once it is implemented. Cristian Tibirna also summarized the current state of KDE printing in his presentation (PDF, 180 kb) for this year’s OpenPrinting Summit in Montreal (which, btw., was from 24 till today): There were two projects dedicated to the new KDE printing system, but unfortunately the student which wanted to rework the GUI failed. At least the online driver loader was completed.
But there is also hope: Christian noted that there was more interest in this topic in the last weeks and that there is also the possibility to directly use the Qt infrastructure for the KDE 4.0 release. The major rework for the new GUI could be done afterwards for KDE 4.1.

Most of the other parts listed at the Beta 3 Release Goals page are interesting, but have active development groups behind them. Kate for example just got a shiny search dialog (I hope that one finds its way into kdelibs to become the main new search dialog for all programs). And the kde-pim team also mentioned often enough that they plan to release a kmail version for 4.0. I’m not totally sure what will happen to konqueror but I guess there are active developers as well.

The only thing I’m really missing so far is Kopete – it was never clearly stated if it will make it or not for KDE 4.0 and I wonder in what state it is. It would be a shame to have a KDE without Kopete.

Anyway, the list gives a pretty good overview about the state of the release-important parts of KDE and hopefully helps by addressing the last bits which are just not in shape yet. From the users point of view the list might lead to a Beta 3 release with all pieces in place and also working good enough to extensively test it. I’m looking forward to that!

Hello PlanetKDE!

Thanks to Chris my blog is now listed at PlanetKDE. Hello to everyone!

For those who don’t know me some words about me and my relation to KDE:
Most people do now me by my blog, /home/liquidat. There I cover all FLOSS-related topics but with a focus on KDE, Fedora and Linux. The type of posts range from simple news over reviews to analysis and of course comments. In this regard it might also happen that I cover a post made by a KDE developer on his/her blog just to report about the news. Simply ignore the duplication in such cases.

My contribution to KDE is at the moment mainly the reporting part mentioned above and some small work in the usual categories: a bit of techbase translation and techbase work here, a set of bug reports there and so on. I still wait for an opportunity to use my quite limited C/C++ skills to contribute, but until that unlikely event happens I will focus on news and reports.

Fedora 8 with NetworkManager 0.7 and KDE 4 development/runtime environment

The Fedora development branch got a set of new packages: NetworkManager was updated to a development snapshot of version 0.7, and KDE 4 base packages found their way into the repository.

NetworkManager 0.7

NetworkManager wasn’t updated to version 0.7 within the time frame of the feature freeze given by the release schedule. However, it was always promised as a feature for Fedora 8. So the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) made an exception and allowed to update the packages a week after the feature freeze.

I do like that exception since NetworkManager was reworked in many main areas for the 0.7 release: system wide configuration, multiple active devices, a new libnm_glib (the old one was a source of many, many problems with NM), usage of dhclient instead of dhcdbd (which kills hopefully another set of problems) and various smaller fixes.
It is not clear yet if the first two features will find their way into the 0.7 release which will be shipped with Fedora 8, but there is always hope. Once we have multiple active devices features like Internet Connection Sharing are not that far away hopefully.

KDE 4 development/runtime environment

While the inclusion of KDE 4 as the standard KDE desktop for Fedora didn’t work out Rex Dieter has announced that Fedora 8 wil be shipped with the necessary packages to run and develop KDE 4 applications. “Necessary” in this regards means:

all of kdelibs, kdepimlibs, kdebase that doesn’t conflict with their kde3 counterparts

This is helful step for users to get a first glance at KDE 4 applications and will also help developers to develop new software for the KDE 4 desktop. I for myself hope that these pacakges will be extended over time to become an alternative desktop besides KDE 3 and GNOME in Fedora 8. It is also worth a try to add other KDE 4 packages over time.

Btw., other distributions are taking a similar approach: OpenSuse 10.3 will be shipped with some KDE 4 apps integrated into the usual KDE 3 desktop.