Ruby Sightings: amaroK

Posted by Eric Stewart Sun, 12 Mar 2006 08:03:00 GMT

I never realized the amaroK developers had any affinity toward Ruby.

As a part time user of Linux, usually Kubuntu these days, I occasionally use amaroK for playing music to work by. As Linux music player + library applications go, it’s one of the nicest you can find with some features that you don’t find in many other players.

amaroK, like an increasing amount of modern software, supports scripting to allow users to extend the software’s capabilities. They do this by taking advantage of amaroK’s DCOP interface.

This makes it possible to write scripts in almost any programming language, like Ruby, Python or bash scripting. The recommended programming language is Ruby, which is easy to learn and very well suited for amaroK scripting. The amaroK team will be happy to assist you if you have questions regarding Ruby programming.

Not surprisingly, they even recommend Ruby as a nice way to script the application, though they support other languages.

As development goes on, in fact, they are converting compiled portions of code to scripts that can be customized or replaced. This solution came to light after requests by users to support additional sources of song lyrics and deal with the brittle way they interfaced with such sites.

Sooooo, what to do? Scripts to the rescue! What I did is, ripped the hardcoded Lyrc code out. Ported the C++ code to Ruby. Then added a couple of DCOP calls and script notifications for the communication Script <—> amaroK. Added a slice of XML, and you get your spicy new Scriptable Lyrics Feature, mmh.

There was a bit of reaction in the post referenced above to the dependency on Ruby for the newly converted portion of default functionality. If KDE had a default scripting language (similar to the OS X/Applescript relationship) I’d understand those complaints a little more. But then again, OS X installs Python and Ruby by default along with Applescript and nobody really complains.

Is a dependency on a language runtime very different from a dependency on a given library?

Update: As Cornelius Schumacher points out, other KDE projects beginning to do similar things.

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X Compositing Is Slick

Posted by Eric Stewart Thu, 09 Feb 2006 01:57:00 GMT

Not long ago I finally upgraded my Kubuntu Linux machine from Hoary Hedgehog to Breezy Badger. Since I was in a masochistic mood (although the upgrade went surprisingly well with only a few minor hiccups), I decided to try enabling compositing in XWindows.

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Mandriva going Debian?

Posted by Eric Stewart Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:37:00 GMT

I didn’t really expect to hear this any time.. well.. ever! One technology strategist at least seems to think Mandriva will move from being Red Hat based to Debian based.

At the beginning of this year I might have been ambivalent about such a move. But in March, after being a Mandrake (now Mandriva) user for several years I made the switch to Ubuntu. More specifically, I moved to Kubuntu, being more of a KDE fan as of late. I haven’t looked back.

Despite making a concurrent switch to amd64 builds (and the associated extra headaches with being a relatively early adopter) the switch has been a great success. Why has it been better?

  • package management and installation has been easier (Synaptic and apt-get are nice!)
  • I have had no real dependency headaches – apt-get has kept me out of trouble pretty well
  • wider availability of stable software
  • I like system structure better – things like apache layout/config better thought through
  • seems to have a great, responsive community
  • Ubuntu highly leverages their Debian base
Some things have not gone so smoothly. Much having to do with using the amd64 version of the distribution:
  • Fewer binaries available/harder to track down some dependencies
  • Drivers not always available
  • Some things (like hotplugging) didn’t work as well out of the box as the non-amd64 dist
  • Software overally not kept quite as up-to-date, though this is not purely a bad thing
  • Audo/Video have been problematic and inconsistent

Overall I’m very happy and haven’t thought of going back. I can’t say how much of this is due to the Debian base, but my current impression is that it would be a good move. RPM gave me nothing but headaches.

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