[gentoo-amd64] Re: Ethereal and KDE

[Duncan]

Mark Haney posted <434EB5C4.9010100@××××××××××××.org>, excerpted below, 
on Thu, 13 Oct 2005 15:30:12 -0400:

> For Ethereal, I can't get the GUI to even open up.  I can use tethereal,
> but I'd prefer the GUI since I'm analyzing packets from another system and
> don't want to have to boot into Fedora or (gasp!) XP just to view the
> capture file.

I don't have ethereal merged here, nor do I run a laptop, but with the
other post saying the GUI works up until packet capture time, it obviously
should be doing at least that good for you, as well.

What I'd suggest is minimizing your CFLAGS to -march=k8 -O2 -pipe.  If
that fixes it, consider filing a bug with what worked and what didn't, so
the ebuild maintainer can consider using filter-flags or the like to kill
the bad CFLAGS.

If it's not CFLAGS, check the libraries and/or USE flags.  You
mentioned you are new to Gentoo, so tracking this stuff may be new to
you.  Run ldd against the binary and see if it lists anything as not
found. Then you only have to figure out what provides that.  In
particular, note that if you've recently changed USE flags that the
problem package uses, remerging it will often solve the problem,
particularly if you attempted to clean up after changing the use flags and
unmerged some things.  Many packages will compile in support for a library
at build-time, then require that library to launch, even if you aren't
using that functionality.

(I got burned by this early in my Gentoo experience after compiling links
with USE=X, then unmerging X because it wasn't yet working due to another
issue.  Links then quit working as well, because it had been compiled
against the X libraries, and needed them to run, even in text-only mode. 
I now have links listed in my /etc/package.use as -X, so I can compile it
without X support and it'll still work if X is off the system temporarily,
even tho I have USE=X set in make.conf.)

If ldd says the libraries are there, that still doesn't mean they are
working correctly.  You may wish to turn off all the USE flags you can for
the package and remerge, just to ensure support for them isn't somehow
fscked.

Gentoo does have a couple additional tools to help with tracking this sort
of thing.  emerge's -N (--newuse in long form) flag can be helpful in
finding packages that were merged with USE flags other than your current
flags.  Try emerge -pvN world, then remove the -p once you are ready to
go.  Sometimes just changing a single flag will put a bunch of stuff on
the list to be remerged, so definitely use the -p to see how many packages
it'll be merging and consider the time involved to do so, before blindly
telling emerge to go ahead, without the -p.

Likewise, the revdep-rebuild command is quite useful to get a scan of
broken dependencies and see what portage says needs to be remerged on your
system to try to fix them.  revdep-rebuild is it's own command, but makes
use of portage, so again, use the -p here as well, to get a list of what
it wants to merge, before letting it go ahead.  It's always good to know
what you are getting yourself into!  <g>

If you haven't read it yet, the post-install parts of the Gentoo Handbook
(Working with Gentoo, Working with Portage, etc) are loaded with Gentoo
survival tips and tricks such as this. They are well worth the read, and
will leave you far better equipped to tackle the challenges of keeping a
Gentoo system running smoothly.  I actually read the entire handbook the
first time while I was still on Mandrake, as I wanted to know just what
made Gentoo different, then read the post-installation stuff again later,
when I could actually try some of the stuff it mentioned on my new Gentoo
system. However, it's amazing how many folks I run into on the lists that
apparently haven't read the material and therefore haven't a clue that
tools such as revdep-rebuild even exist.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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