Thread: First Car PC, Gentoo Attempt..

nghost is offically installed on my gentoo box.

I ended up using revision 2024, however I think 2084 may of also worked.

I could not get an ebuild to work for me, libnghost would fail everytime on ac.local.. I wonder if this is because it was using the latest SVN, which does not have an autogen.sh file, so configure isn't being built??

As before libnghost compiled/installed fine, but nghost would fail saying 'can't find libnghost'... I searched the entire system and found the .pc file in /usr/local/lib/nghost/ ..

Gentoo looks for those files in /usr/lib/

Solved that, and everything installed fine.. I am getting some errors about missing fonts, but considering I only have xorg-server x11-server, and fluxbox installed.. that probably explains it.


nscan is giving an issue, I don't think it's connecting/opening port 6997 correctly.

I have my music in /home/jmorgan6/music, and specified that in the nghost.conf in /usr/local/etc/nghost/ . Even started nscan, then nghost does not result in music being displayed.

I see in stdout/err a
tried to connect to: (icepanel) localhost : 6999
tried to connect to: (nscan) localhost : 6997
04/30/2010 12:17:30 CDT:ERROR - EventSubscriber: subscribe() - 102:: Error time either is not found or is not a valid event
NProcess::start(): ERROR launching application: : nweather.py
nweather.py
04/30/2010 12:17:30 CDT:ERROR - nsocket.cpp:connectTo(177) - Error connecting to host(111) - Connection refused: icepanel


Just started looking, so hopefully it will be an easy fix.

Well, I managed to get this working on my gentoo box at home. I posted this on openice's forums, but also going to post it here.

I know when I was searching to do this I found very little help covering my issues, so hopefully this will help any future 'me(s)' out there.

"I have a fresh Gentoo install from stage3. I've installed Xorg, fluxbox and other apps. I am not using any kind of full blown desktop environment.

I could not make an ebuild work. It would fail on aclocal about missing config files.(emerge libnghost) The repository it used did not have an autogen, or config files so I don't know if that could of been the cause(first time trying to use an ebuild like that).

Using revision 2024 I was able to autogen.sh && configure && make && sudo make install by doing the following:

Installing libnghost first, and verifying the dependencies were correct. I didn't have any errors from configure/make/install on the libnghost svn.

I received my first error on nghost when running ./configure. It could not find 'nghostcore' . The pkg-config command was failing. After bashing my head against the keyboard for a while (I went down the path of whether automake was the wrong version.. so yea..) I finally discovered everything was installed with '/usr/local/' prefix instead of just '/usr/'. I copied all the contents of /usr/local/lib (and subdirectories) to /usr/lib/ .

nghost succesfully installed. Because of the above, I had a few other annoyances.

files in:
/usr/local/etc/ that should of been in /etc/ and /etc/init.d
/usr/local/bin that i'd rather have in /usr/bin

possible bugs not dependent to gentoo?
1.) The config file (/usr/local/etc/nghost/nghost.conf) shows the skins directory to be '/usr/share/nghost', which in reality that directory is empty and the skins are actually in /usr/local/share/nghost/.
2.) nscan did not have executable by root permissions, even after copying it to /etc/init.d I was unable to add it using rc-update until changing permissions.

After limping along and getting a pretty much functional nghost.. I thought i'd uninstall and install using --prefix=/usr to get things where i'd rather have them. This did not work, libnghost compiled right, and nghost did as well. (the lib files were in /usr/lib from libnghost this time). But when I tried to run nghost I got an error saying it couldn't find the config file in /usr/local/etc/nghost/, but in reality it was in /usr/etc/nghost (I'd of expected it to just be in /etc...)

I copied it over to see if that was the only issue, but when running again it failed when not finding a bunch of lib files. At this point I uninstalled, and reinstalled using the method described above.

I am still having an issue with nscan I believe, it's not updating music. I have music in ~/music which contains 3 mp3s, then 3 directories with more sub directories of music(An Artist, then 3 diff CD's of their music, then the mp3s).

Last night I only had 3 songs in ~/music, and it would not display them in nghost. If I ran nscan manually it did seem to find them in the logs. Out of fustration I added another folder 'music' and put them in there incase it wouldn't find songs in the first directory. So the songs were in ~/music/music . Still nothing. I went to bed disappointed, but woke up this morning to find the songs being displayed in nghost ? I then copied the other files I mentioned above(Artist/cd/songs). nghost has yet to display them, i've restarted and nscan is definitely started prior to nghost. Still nothing. How long does it take? Do I have to create a table for nghost in mysql manually or will it? the password information is setup(well actually a user without a password, so i left the password field blank.)


Hopefully this post will help fellow gentoo users get this great front end installed. If anyone knows how to properly install it in /usr/ please let me know, i'd much rather have it that way(config files in /etc/ or better yet, /etc/conf.d/, libs in /usr/lib/, etc).
"

Couple additional updates, nscan started working for me. I am not sure if this was just 'luck' or a result of what I did. I -thought- at some point I found a config file for nscan(not the nghost.conf or nscan.conf) that had settings for the init.d script about what log level, etc to use. In my efforts to find it again, I discovered a init script, and config file in the svn I checked out under 'gentoo'. The init script was slightly different then what was installed, and the conf file said 'to be in /etc/conf.d/' so I moved it over*was not already there), and moved the init script. nscan has worked since, and honestly i've been afraid to backtrack anything i've done and break it again If that is what fixed it, then that's another gentoo issue with the install.

Overall it's working very nice, i've added several albums and they showed up pretty much instantly.

I don't know if this is ideal, but I am using /etc/conf.d/local.start for everything.

I started 'Xorg', then fluxbox, then nghost. I have nscan being started by adding it with 'rc-update add nscan default' . This combination is working well for me. Fluxbox's task bar is removed, and the only reason I have it is for navit. Without it, I have no way to close navit.

I still have alot of work to do on Navit, it launches, and gpsd connects to my usb GPS.. but I've yet to get it to display anything usable. I haven't spent time on it.

My next goal is to add pandora to nghost. I haven't done any reading, but I assume those extra program(or could even change the current buttons?), can be changed to call a script. I won't be using hdradio, so it be nice to have that run 'pandora.sh' for me instead.

Glad you got it working. Are you also having nghost start up via /etc/init.d? They should be run as the same user if the db is in ~.

Yes, I don't know if others distros have something similar(Never used it before), but gentoo has /etc/init.d/local which basically does whatever is in /etc/conf.d/local.start and /etc/init.d/local.stop .

My local.start looks something like

Xorg &>/dev/null &
sleep 3
startfluxbox &>/dev/null &
sleep 1
alsactl restore &
nghost &>/dev/null &


Which /etc/init.d/local is added to the default startup. I may move nscan over to this as well, to prevent /etc/init.d/local from being ran prior to /etc/init.d/nscan ever..

I don't know if the sleeps in there we really required, but I figured better safe then sorry. Now that I have everything working, I plan to tweak it. I think I am going to add a wrapper script to start nghost, and call that from init.d/local .

nghost.sh
#!/bin/sh

while [ 1 ]; do
isRunning=`ps aux | grep nscan | grep -v grep`
if [ "$isRunning" == "" ]; then
/usr/local/bin/nscan &>/dev/null &
else
/usr/local/bin/nghost &>/dev/null &
break
fi
done



I noticed you can start nscan several times, is that intentional? I will probably make a wrapper for that as well, to prevent that from happening. I've noticed if you start a second one with debugging right after killing one, it fails to connect to the port. so I don't think having multiple nscan's actually has an issue with nghost, but it's extra processes that aren't doing anything productive?

It's pretty awesome overall, still playing with it. Currently using the 'BlackSea' skin. Is there any skins that have buttons for volume instead of the slider? I don't have my touch screen yet, but i'd think button up/down be easier then a slider.

Let me know what I can do to help with the project.

I'm trying to install on my archlinux box, after installing MANY dependencies and when I was trying to install libnghost, get the following after "make" :
...

ndebug.cpp: In static member function ‘static void nghost::ndebug:ut(nghost::ndebug::LEVEL, const char*, ...)’:
ndebug.cpp:68:37: error: ‘vsnprintf’ was not declared in this scope
ndebug.cpp:73:191: error: ‘snprintf’ was not declared in this scope
make[3]: *** [libnghostlog_la-ndebug.lo] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/root/ng/libnghost/src/log'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/root/ng/libnghost/src'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/ng/libnghost'

any help?

I don't recognize that error from my trial and error. configure is successful?

I'll do some research, but hopefully Kev knows more off the top of his head.

Thank you for your reply,
yes, configure is successful, and get the following:

Summary:
core: yes
dao: yes
gui2: yes
gui3: no
log: yes
net: yes
plugins: yes
mysql: no
sqlite: yes
curl: yes
n2ograbber: yes
ipc: yes
phonon: no
xine: no
gstreamer: no
sample: no
hdradio: no
voicesynth: no

Possibly a bug with gcc 4? What version are you using?

Found a forum post on another forum where the user had to add '#include <cstdio>' to common.cpp .. Though this was not an Nghost install, but it was the same error. Apparently gcc 4 requires that.

On another google result I found the following comment:
"It appears that the new version of gcc, version 4.r.0-4 which installs with Fedora 11 requires the following code at the beginning of all ./src/*.cpp such as zm_utils.cpp

#include <cstdio>
"

Again, not nghost, but definitely the same error.

ّWell, I added #include <cstdio> to the top of the ndebug.cpp file and it works.. but I get new error :

make[3]: Entering directory `/root/ng/libnghost-2.0.2/src/dao'
/bin/sh ../../libtool --tag=CXX --mode=compile g++ -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I../.. -I../../src/dao -I../../src/log -I../../src/core -I../../src/plugins/interface -I/usr/include/taglib -g -O2 -MT libnghostdao_la-populate.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/libnghostdao_la-populate.Tpo -c -o libnghostdao_la-populate.lo `test -f 'populate.cpp' || echo './'`populate.cpp
g++ -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I../.. -I../../src/dao -I../../src/log -I../../src/core -I../../src/plugins/interface -I/usr/include/taglib -g -O2 -MT libnghostdao_la-populate.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/libnghostdao_la-populate.Tpo -c populate.cpp -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/libnghostdao_la-populate.o
populate.cpp:35:38: fatal error: boost/algorithm/string.hpp: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make[3]: *** [libnghostdao_la-populate.lo] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/root/ng/libnghost-2.0.2/src/dao'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/root/ng/libnghost-2.0.2/src'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/ng/libnghost-2.0.2'
make: *** [all] Error 2

I did't find the file or the dir boost/algorithm/string.hpp !!

Thanks again