An awesome app called Qingy (Part 1)

[s4t4n]

Emerged qingy and been using it for a couple days now ... awesome app s4t4n.

Three questions/comments:
Do themes scale everything from an expected resolution of 800x600? I have my framebuffer set at 1024x768 and I am sure that it is correct from the background image, but text boxes and other Qingy theme elements are placed as if the screen was 800x600. Such a scaling system would make sense to handle users with different resolutions, but I don't see the fact that qingy uses an 800x600 "virtual dimensions" anywhere in the info pages. Note that this issue agrees with HermanR.

Yes, you are right, and yes, you are right ;-P
Qingy documentation is unchanged since version 0.3; unfortunately my doc maintainer has been missing for quite some time. I think I'm going to update it myself, as well as adding a FAQ to answer common issue, such as those that have been addressed on this thread several times...

I'm not a fan of many of the available qingy themes (they look rather ... haphazard ... no offense intended). So, of course, I am developing my own. At the moment I am designing one based on a Tron 2.0 wallpaper. Does anybody know how licensing might affect if this theme could be distributed through the qingy site (if anyone wanted it of course). Not sure how freely available wallpaper for professionally developed software is licensed.

There is a section for qingy themes on http://themes.freshmeat.net. I would like new themes to be posted there, so that I don't have to take responsibility for artwork copyright issues by hosting them on the main qingy site. I already put there some themes of the official themepack and, time allowing, I'll post all of them. After that, I'm going to remove the themepack completely... About your licensing concerns, I suggest you ask the Tron folks about it...

Finally, any chance that the qingy theme files might support drawing arbitrary colored boxes/borders possibly with transparency. This way I wouldn't have to edit my image to change the placement of input areas. Hope this hasn't been mentioned before as I skipped a couple pages in this thread, but this feature is in the bootsplash tools and I bet it could be implemented much better in qingy given the more logical theme config file format.

Maybe.
There are many other things that have to be implemented before that...

[s4t4n]

Or it also would be great to use the same theme format as bootsplash.
And add some things to it, that bootsplash will ignore. So it's more easy to have 1 theme for qingy and framebuffer

Well, you could try to convince the bootsplash folks to use the same format qingy uses ;-P
Seriously, I don't think this is feasible, as qingy and bootsplash have quite different needs for their GUIs...
What would be relatively easy to implement is some sort of script (or app) that takes a qingy theme and generates a bootsplash one from it automatically... anybody willing to do it?

[jvanhorn]

Imhaving some troubles if anyone has the time, I have the gentoo-dev-sources 2.6.8-r3 compile with framebuffer support. I emerged qingy and edited /etc/inittab and added a /etc/directfbrc but everytime i turn on my laptop it says unrecoverable error reverting to text mode anything come to mind off hand that i did wrong?

[.hesoez]

hi,

i'm having some weird problems with qingy.
it all worked fine until i upgraded some packages.

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glibc-2.3.4-20040619-r1 to glibc 2.3.4-20040808
DirectFB-0.9.20 to DirectFB-0.9.20-r1
qingy-0.4.x to qingy-0.5.2

the rest all stayed the same (didn't touch the kernel, 2.6.8-rc2-love3, which worked with fb and qingy before the upgrade), now i get the text login at start without any given errors.
i tried to run qingy and qingy-DirectFB from a tty

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qingy tty2 in tty2 gives me a text-login prompt again.
[url=http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=222597]same problem[/url]

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qingy-DirectFB tty2 gives me "segmentation fault"

any thoughts on whats wrong?
i'm gonna try the previous glibc again, hope it helps

edit:
neither 2.3.4-20040619-r1 or 2.3.3-20040420-r1 bring qingy back to life...

grtz

[jvanhorn]

Badass I tried qingy-DirectFB tty2 and it worked! Evidentally Im running vesaFb how do i run DirectFB instead????? Thanks in advance.

[.hesoez]

i have done a "emerge -C DirectFB qingy && emerge DirectFB qingy" (apparently i had qingy 0.2.3 and 0.5.2 installed) i've deleted every qingy-related file (/etc/qingy /usr/share/qingy /usr/lib/qingy and some other)before emerging qingy again so i have a clean qingy install (i think).

i get the error "unrecoverable error: reverting to text mode"
and when i adjust /etc/qingy/settings (screensaver "running_time..." --> screensaver = "running_time..."), i get the error "load_settings: cannot continue without a theme!"
the theme that is set is the default theme and it is present in /usr/share/qingy/themes

i changed the adjustment in the screensaver line back, here is my current settings-file:

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# Directory containing X sessions
x_sessions = "/etc/X11/Sessions/"
# Directory containing text mode sessions
text_sessions = "/etc/qingy/sessions/"

# Full path to the X server
# x_server = "/usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86"
# Full path to the 'xinit' executable
xinit = "/usr/X11R6/bin/xinit"

# Where are the screen savers?
screensavers_dir = "/usr/lib/qingy/screensavers"

#       screensaver "pixel"
screensaver "running_time"#="%H:%S:%M"

# Where are the themes?
themes_dir = "/usr/share/qingy/themes"

# What theme do you want (you can also specify 'random')
# theme = random
theme = "default"

# Who is allowed to shut down the system?
# Allowed options are 'everyone', 'root', 'noone'
# shutdown_policy = everyone

# wether we should clear background image during dialogs (default is no)...
# this is the default setting, it gets overridden if the theme you are using
# sets the same setting differently...
# clear_background = yes

# wether to allow session locking; if you enable this, when you try to
# switch to a qingy-controlled tty whose owner is not your current
# user, you will be asked for the password of that user before being
# allowed to continue. If you are root, of course, you can switch
# to any tty you chose to. Default setting is 'no'.
#lock_sessions = yes

# these options are valid only if qingy is started from tty3
#tty = 3
#{
#       theme = "fireplace"
#       screensaver "pixel"
#}

[Adamal]

I just set up a new system running the x86 stable branch. I have tried to get qingy working but right now I am recieving the following error:

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init: Id "c1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

I'm pretty sure directfb is working since when I type in "fbtruetype test" Test is displayed correctly.

Please help

[Adamal]

never mind I forgot to turn the fbcon USE var on when compiling DirectFB.

Now I just gotta figure out why it won't load xfce4

[.hesoez]

never mind I forgot to turn the fbcon USE var on when compiling DirectFB.

thx, that fixed my problem... (it was working without the flag before )

grtz

[pqwy]

OK, it's my turn to complain: since I upgraded the kernel from 2.6.7 to 2.6.8 + vesafb-tng, qingy from .4.x to .5.2 and it started to work again, I can't get any fonts.

Everything is fine, but if the theme file specifies a font, it doesn't get shown. Otherwise, the default font is displayed. Also, I get a cursor, and it scales with the font chosen, so I assume a font is actually loaded. No error messages, DirectFB truetype seems ok (as shown by fbtruetype). Changing font color in theme does nothing, not even to the default font, though.

What could I possibly be missing?

[dencar]

I'm not going to do anything until official 2.6.9 is out, sorry but enough is enough.

It's now official, S4T4N. Hope there's more than enough. Need that Qingy.

[s4t4n]

I'm not going to do anything until official 2.6.9 is out, sorry but enough is enough.

It's now official, S4T4N. Hope there's more than enough. Need that Qingy.

Hehe, downloading 2.6.9 now

[s4t4n]

OK, it's my turn to complain: since I upgraded the kernel from 2.6.7 to 2.6.8 + vesafb-tng, qingy from .4.x to .5.2 and it started to work again, I can't get any fonts.

Everything is fine, but if the theme file specifies a font, it doesn't get shown. Otherwise, the default font is displayed. Also, I get a cursor, and it scales with the font chosen, so I assume a font is actually loaded. No error messages, DirectFB truetype seems ok (as shown by fbtruetype). Changing font color in theme does nothing, not even to the default font, though.

What could I possibly be missing?

fbtruetype comes from media-gfx/splashutils and has nothing to do with DirectFB.

So your problem is probably the one discussed more than once in this very thread...

In short:
with the 'bindist' USE flag turned off, recompile freetype, then DirectFB (and make sure it has the truetype flag turned on), and finally qingy. It should work correctly then...

[s4t4n]

It's now official, S4T4N. Hope there's more than enough. :D Need that Qingy.

Hehe, downloading 2.6.9 now ;-)

Downloaded and installed, qingy works nicely (at least using the trident framebuffer).

So... ;-PP

[dencar]

Downloaded and installed, qingy works nicely (at least using the trident framebuffer).

Good one. I'll try it with 2.6.9-ck1and vesafb as soon as problems with portage are sorted out.

[s4t4n]

Hello everybody, here is what I have in CVS:

- Added support for passing user-defined arguments to the X server. To enhance security, as a default we now pass '-nolisten tcp'...
- Added support for AMD Athlon64 processors optimization.
- Fixed support for shadow password authentication...
- Fix stuff so that qingy links correctly against the PAM library when compiled as a static binary.
- Session files containing spaces are now supported.
- Reworked qingy PAM module to work with more distros (tested on Fedora, Debian, Gentoo)
- Added support for 'retries' setting in config file which allows user to specify how many times qingy should try to bring its gui up before reverting to text mode...

The most interesting Gentoo (and security) wise is, of course, the first item...

[akos]

Hi everyone,

Is there a way to configure qingy (or DirectFB) that it would turn off the monitor after a given time of inactivity using DPMS (like the X server does)?

regards,
Akos

[rush_ad]

qingy is not working for me with gentoo-dev-source 2.6.9-r1

it worked with 2.6.8 just fine.

give me error saying
unrecoverable error. reverting to text mode!

any solutions??

[s4t4n]

qingy is not working for me with gentoo-dev-source 2.6.9-r1

it worked with 2.6.8 just fine.

give me error saying
unrecoverable error. reverting to text mode!

any solutions??

What framebuffer are you using?
Also, recompiling DirectFB and qingy might help after a kernel upgrade...

[rush_ad]

i am using directFB. and this is a fresh install of gentoo. so i dont think it would make any difference. but i will still recompile everything
thanks

[s4t4n]

i am using directFB
thanks

rush_ad, don't rush!
I mean, what framebuffer driver did you compile in your kernel (DirectFB is just a library that makes use of that driver...)?

[rush_ad]

i compiled the option thats in the graphics drivers thing. i'm not on linux right now. if this is enough, may be you can reply. or i will post when i get back to my pc.

also, which options should i compile in kernel to make qingy work?

if i remember correctly, i compiled vega-tng or something in kernel.

[s4t4n]

i compiled the option thats in the graphics drivers thing. i'm not on linux right now. if this is enough, may be you can reply. or i will post when i get back to my pc.

also, which options should i compile in kernel to make qingy work?

if i remember correctly, i compiled vega-tng or something in kernel.

Under Device Drivers -> Graphics support, say Yes to
- Support for frame buffer devices
- Enable Video Mode Handling Helpers
- *one* of the following:
- VESA vga (old version)
- vesa tng (this is the new version)
- Trident support (only if you have a Trident card)
- under Console display driver support
- VGA text console
- Video mode selection support
- Framebuffer Console support

This is what DirectFB needs to be able to perform its stuff (note that you need to compile it with the fbcon USE flag enabled)...

Note that this only enables framebuffer support in your kernel, you still need to configure and activate it by passing the appropriate options in your boot loader. A good sign of a working framebuffer is high-resolution console messages during boot-up...

[s4t4n]

Hi everyone,

Is there a way to configure qingy (or DirectFB) that it would turn off the monitor after a given time of inactivity using DPMS (like the X server does)?

regards,
Akos

Uh, not out of the box, I believe, but I'm told that this feature is now in the CVS repository of DirectFB.

[rush_ad]

s4t4n said

Note that this only enables framebuffer support in your kernel, you still need to configure and activate it by passing the appropriate options in your boot loader. A good sign of a working framebuffer is high-resolution console messages during boot-up...

now i have compiled kernel with what you told me to. now what should i options in boot loader to?