Combining GNU Autotools with Qt to One Build System

As you have probably aware, when you have a project that uses GNU Autotools (autoconf, automake, libtool) and Qt, there are two different build systems in use. First is the GNU autotools build system and the second is the Qt build system (Qmake, etc.).

The weakness of using two independent build system probably is not too obvious. However, when you start trying to build the whole project outside of the root directory of the source code, the build will fail. With GNU autotools itself, the build will be successful. Then how do you migrate from Qt build system to GNU autotools? It's simple, use Autotroll (http://tsunanet.net/autotroll/). Autotroll is a set of m4 file and makefile which will help you carry-out what qmake do. This way, the build system will be unified into GNU autotools build system. No more calls to qmake manually (or within a script you made).

Building Qt Application on 64-bit Multilib Systems

Some Qt application cannot build correctly on 64-bit multilib systems by default. For example, the Italc application (http://italc.sf.net). The problem is, the default search path for Qt library usually set to the 32-bit qt library whereas the default C++ (GNU g++) compiler is 64 bit one. To force the application build process to use the 64-bit Qt library, you must set the QTDIR environment variable to the path_to_64_bit_Qt_library. For example, in my machine this is how I build the Italc application:

darmawan@opunaga:italc-1.0.9$ QTDIR="/usr/lib64/qt" ./configure --prefix=/usr  --libdir=/usr/lib64
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/ginstall -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
...

ICQ behind a proxy with pidgin

Using your ICQ account with Pidgin in network behind a HTTP proxy is not a straight forward matter. These are the settings which you should change on your ICQ account settings in Pidgin:
1. Change the Port in the Account|Modify Account|Advanced tab for the login.messaging.aol.com server from 5190 to 443.

2. Go to Account|Modify Account|Proxy tab and enter the correct host and port for your HTTP proxy. If the proxy needs an authentication, you should enter your username and password in that tab. Otherwise, leave the username and password blank.

That's it. Hopefully it solves your problem.

Fixing Slackware64 Console Video Mode Bug

I have just finished installing my machine (Athlon64 X2 4000+, 2GB RAM, ATI RS690G motherboard) when I found that the console went blank after logging-out from X. It takes me a couple of hours to figure out what's wrong because the console is just fine prior to starting the X server. After playing around with LILO, I found out that the it's the video mode that causes the bug. My LCD display cannot switch to the requested "default" video mode upon logging out from X. These are the steps to fix the video mode (I'm using LILO bootloader):

1. Edit /etc/lilo.conf and change the video mode to "vga=ask". This will force the dialog that let you choose the correct video mode parameter to pass to the kernel on boot.

2. Reboot the machine.

3. Assuming that you know the correct video mode for your display (resolution and color depth). Enter the correct video mode number when LILO ask for the video mode to be used. LILO will display the video mode supported by the display (acquired via EDID). Anyway, the number corresponding to the video mode is in hexadecimal value. For example, 1280x1024x16 (1280x1024 16-bit) corresponds to video mode number 365h (794 decimal).

4. Edit /etc/lilo.conf and change the video mode to the suitable video mode number. For example, if your display support 1280x1024x16, you should change the "vga=ask" in lilo.conf to "vga=794". In the preceding example, the video mode number in lilo.conf is in decimal.

5. Reboot to see whether you have a flawless console video mode.

That's it. With this, you should be able to fix or enhance the look and feel of your console in Slackware64 (or other Linux distro).