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[N. Holzschuch]

Hi guys,

The Good: aMSN works on the XO. That's a native IM application, with video conferencing, that looks a lot like MSN and talks with it (and many other standards)
The Bad: there's no audio. It's just an IM application, with video-conferencing.
The Ugly: wait till you see the installation procedure.

Install procedure:
- open terminal
- become root: su
- install aMSN: yum install amsn

(it will require tcl and tk, and a whole load of other dependencies. Better do this on a XO immediately after startup, or yum will run out of memory).

If you feel lucky, you can run amsn now (just remember to log off from root first). But you'll see the problems: the window manager only displays one window at a time, so you have to juggle (with alt-tab) between the contact window, the chat window, the video windows... Highly unpractical. Basically, you need a better window manager, only you can't. There is a solution, and I found it on this page:
http://www.hackszine.com/blog/archive/2007/12/run_a_nested_x11_desktop_on_th.html

In short: you're going to install "Xephyr", a window manager that runs on top of the existing window manager:

- Become root again: su
- Install Xephyr: yum install xorg-x11-server-Xephyr blackbox
- Log out of root account: exit
- Create config file:  echo exec /usr/bin/blackbox > ~/xephyr.xinitrc
- run Xephyr: xinit ~/xephyr.xinitrc -- /usr/bin/Xephyr :1 -ac -screen 1200x900

- Inside Xephyr, right click to get the menu, then start a Xterm.
- In the Xterm, launch aMSN: amsn

You'll need to resize some of the first windows, but it works. I had an IM chat with another computer, and we could both run videos (I could see his video, he could see my video).

I had a delay of about 10 seconds on the incoming video (video coming to be displayed on the XO). On the plus side, it means that by running fast between the office and the living room, I could video-conference with myself... 

This delay could probably be reduced by decreasing the size or quality of the video sent by the other computer.

How about a picture?

[XOfan]

   Surprised I'm the first to give KUDOS here. Good job!

[LaPaglia]

This is what I needed!!!!!!!!! Thanks.

One question. I only have the one fixed font in AMSN. Should there be more in AMSN? than "fixed"? It would be nice to have a larger font for these old eyes.

Michael.

[N. Holzschuch]

It would be nice to have a larger font for these old eyes.

I totally agree.

First, the bad news: the X server in the XO only has the fixed font. No other fonts are included, and the standard ways to include them don't work. It looks like this could be fixed in the next release, though.

Then, the good news: I managed to convince Xephyr (and therefore amsn) to use other fonts. Here's how:
1) install TTF fonts using this page (http://www.fedorafaq.org/#installfonts)
su
wget http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec
yum install mkfontdir
yum install ttmkfdir
yum install rpm-build
yum install cabextract
rpmbuild -ba msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec
yum localinstall --nogpgcheck /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm

2) register the TTF fonts with the X11 server:
cd /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/msttcorefonts/fonts/
mkfontdir -o fonts.dir
mkfontcache -o fonts.cache
mkdir /usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1
mkdir /usr/share/X11/fonts/TTF
mkdir /root/.fonts
mkdir /root/.fontconfig
fc-cache -fv

3) launch Xephyr using the same command (xinit ~/xephyr.xinitrc ...)
4) launch a Xterm
5) Then, tell Xephyr about the fonts:
xset +fp /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/msttcorefonts/fonts/
6) launch amsn.

Now, amsn sees a whole load of fonts, and you can choose them, and it does keeps them in memory for the new run (I tried).

Now there may be a way to make this simpler, but I haven't found it yet, and it's time for me to catch some sleep.

It would be nice to avoid step 2, which sould really be done by step 1, only I guess some directories don't exist and it breaks the installer. If someone could send me the output of their step 1 (by typing yum localinstall ... >& bigFile), it would help.

It would also be nice to add the +fp to the xinit that launches Xephyr, but that doesn't work because then X doesn't find "fixed" and "cursor" anymore.So, right now, anyone wanting to try this is stuck with the long way, but my guess is things will get simpler with the next system update.

[reynerc]

looks a lot like MSN and talks with it (and many other standards)

Did you get it to work with others? This looks like it could be a great chat application, but it looks like it will only support MSN instant messaging.

[N. Holzschuch]

This looks like it could be a great chat application, but it looks like it will only support MSN instant messaging.

You're right, it is single-protocol. Fact is, I had a choice between single-protocol (but doing video) and multi-protocol (but no video). I elected to do the video first...

There are many multi-protocal IM applications (pidgin, fitch, gaim), and users have reported porting them with little problems. But multi-protocol+video is an elusive goal (I'm wide open to suggestions). So is VOIP+video, by the way (I've tried skype, ekiga, wengo...)

[LaPaglia]

It would be nice to have a larger font for these old eyes.

I totally agree.

First, the bad news: the X server in the XO only has the fixed font. No other fonts are included, and the standard ways to include them don't work. It looks like this could be fixed in the next release, though.

Then, the good news: I managed to convince Xephyr (and therefore amsn) to use other fonts. Here's how:
<snip>

Thanks I will get to it in the next day or so and let you know how impressed I am with your knowladge. 

Michael

[N. Holzschuch]

My "knowledge" comes mostly from Google and from being extremely stubborn. 

Actually,  running Xephyr with a larger resolution should be a quicker fix:

xinit ~/xephyr.xinitrc -- /usr/bin/Xephyr :1 -ac -screen 1200x900 -dpi 200

(or -dpi 300. Disclaimer: as I'm not near my XO, I can't guarantee that it works).

EDIT:
sorry, this simple solution doesn't work. It does increase the font size in X, in the menus and the title bars, but not in the Xterm and not in the chat window of amsn... (the menus of amsn are expanded, though, but that's not what we wanted).

[jenpc]

I can't verify it works well on a physical XO either, but I'm emulating one in VMware Player and setting the dpi to 150 helps a lot when running "WikidPad on the XO" (http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=1034).

Thanks!

[LaPaglia]

rpmbuild -ba msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec
yum localinstall --nogpgcheck /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm

On the rpmbuild command I get a cabextract needed by msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch error is this command out of sequence?


On the local install command I get a cannot find the file error.

It is spelled correctly.

Any ideas??
Its like I'm missing the .spec from the file name or something.

Im a follower so at this point Im stuck.

[N. Holzschuch]

Hi,
I'd say this thread is superseded by the new thread on Kopete: more features, multi-standard IM, easier to install :

http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=1073.new

Now, if you're not doing this thing for aMSN, but just for the fonts: as it says, you need to run "yum install cabextract"  before the call to "rpmbuild -ba ..." 

Did that one go well, or was there an issue (like "unable to install cabextract", for example ?)

[LaPaglia]

O sure, get me hooked on AMSN then show me a better way 

Did the audio work on this new prog.

I'll install it and if I like it I'll abandon AMSN and the Xepher project. Thanks


Im all for easy installations



Question, Is this command supposed to install two programs. RPM-Build and cabextract?
yum install rpm-build cabextract
It was only installing the first.
If I was smart enough to answer this question I could have done them separately.
(there are times I wish for the days of DOS. )


and one last question. I keep getting no file or directory when I try to use mkfontdir and mkfontcache. I looked in /usr/bin/ and there are no commands like that there.
What am I doing wrong now?     At least I am learning a lot about linux with all these mistakes. 

[N. Holzschuch]

O sure, get me hooked on AMSN then show me a better way 

Terribly sorry.

Question, Is this command supposed to install two programs. RPM-Build and cabextract?
yum install rpm-build cabextract
It was only installing the first.

Yes, that's what it's supposed to do. I copy-pasted this, but when I tried it I actually split the command in two (I don't know why, but I just did). I've updated the instructions with the  yum install command now split in two.

and one last question. I keep getting no file or directory when I try to use mkfontdir and mkfontcache. I looked in /usr/bin/ and there are no commands like that there.
What am I doing wrong now?     At least I am learning a lot about linux with all these mistakes. 

You're not doing anything wrong, I did. mkfontdir was obviously installed by another package, of whom I lost track. Now the difficult part is that I installed so many things in my testing process, I can't remember which one it was for mkfontdir. I'll look into it tonight. Sorry.

[LaPaglia]

Thanks. Ill await your results. I did find that I can do yum install mkfontdir and it installs but there was nothing for mkfontcache. The command MKFONTDIR and MKFONTSCALE are now in my bin dir but that install does not create the MKFONTCACHE command.

O well its the easiest way to learn.

I appreciate all the help


Ok I have it running. I installed MKFONTDR from yum. I used ttfmk to make the fonts.cache file and I found a typeo in the directions

we put the fonts in  /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/msttcorefonts/fonts/
But the xset comand is pointed to
xset +fp /usr/share/redhat/BUILD/msttcorefonts/fonts/   share not src. so I change it to src and it works now.

In fact it works great and I got over my fear of jumping in and trying to fix it. I now feel much more confident with linux. I was a DOS geek in the 80s so this is will be fun.. Thanks for all the help and I hope the steps I took help someone else.

Michael

[N. Holzschuch]

Hi,

thanks for the correction (I updated the instructions).

we put the fonts in  /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/msttcorefonts/fonts/
But the xset comand is pointed to
xset +fp /usr/share/redhat/BUILD/msttcorefonts/fonts/   share not src. so I change it to src and it works now.

I'd like to update the yum instructions, too. Do you remember which packages you installed? (history | grep yum, logged in as root, might help)