a7p’s

Since the default gvim-application-menu-entry in Ubuntu starts gVim via “gvim -f” it is not able to execute a couple of vim-latexsuite commands properly, for example |lv and |ls just don’t work. Changing the menu-entry fixes this issue (also for starting via gnome-do).

I just spend about an hour to print some stamps which I bought from the “Deutsche Post”.

• my PDF-Reader (evince) does not execute JavaScript (which I appreciate very much - it’s a f**king PDF-displayer, not a turing machine)
• the Deutsche Post java-webapplet successfully rebootet my computer twice and crashed my X-Server twice too. The problem only occurs when compiz is used - metacity runs flawless.
• After all this trouble suddenly I was not able to print one of my stamps, since it was “already printed” as the Acrobate Reader (but only the windows version - the linux version did not get that far) and the web-applet claimed. This was fixed in 10 secs by an online-chat-support-guy (I was really supprised).

After all this trouble something came two my mind: Why the hack do they all this to try to keep me from printing some sheet of paper twice? If this is, what their online-stamp-system is secured by, they’ve probably did not realize, how a computer works (these days) - we are not (yet?) living in a TCPA-World.

… my mother would be able to hack their system by simply using a copying machine.

I am using vim-latexsuite under Ubuntu Hardy Heron and it rocks - absolutely - after some bugfixing and configuration. Had to spent some time in the sources and in a couple of mailinglist till I got it running. After all it was simple, but it took some time to find out the magic words strings.

First of all, in 20060325-4.1 the Ubuntu-version has got a bug (LP: #225411) - it just won’t work out of the box. You’ve got to either set some symlinks manually or apply the patch - I applied the patch.

$ sudo patch /usr/share/vim/registry/vim-latexsuite.yaml < vim-latexsuite.patch

Now you can activate the addon for your users vim via $ vim-addons install latex-suite. Vim-latexsuite should work from now on. If you want spellchecking, get your languages dictionary by :setlocal spelllang=<langkey&gt; (in my case de) - vim will ask you if it should download the needed files. Afterwards set spelllang to whichever languages you want, I choose spelllang=en,de_20 (looked it up in the vim-help, which is excellent). You might want to put that in your .vimrc as an autocommand for some filetypes - may be for tex-files.

Now I wanted just two more things:

1. forward searching
2. reverse searching

You can actually have quite some work to enable this functionalities, but you do not have to. It is all done by setting two (2) global environment variables in vim (it only works properly in gvim this way, but since you have to use xdvi to display the dvis that should not be a problem).

let g:Tex_CompileRule_dvi=’latex -src-specials -interaction=nonstopmode $*’
let g:Tex_UseEditorSettingInDVIViewer=1

These two in your .vimrc should do the job, no manual server setting, etc. I had to read a bit of vim-latexsuite source to find out.

If this should not work for you (may be, because you’ve already messed up your system in some way) here a bunch of links that gave me the direction:

• vim-latexsuite, the home of the project
• vim tip #225: a way to get it working (with more work and less comfort *g*)
• Inverse Search with Xdvi(k) the xdvi-project about its’ inverse search functionality
• … about 30 other pages and blog-entries that were a little helpful.

This year for the first time, I was able to visit the German “LinuxTag” every single day and I must say, I am a bit disappointed. Surely, I heard a lot of good speeches, but I wanted more - most of the stuff was not very technical.
My impression is, “LinuxTag” lost some of it’s magic, might be that’s because many projects choose other events as their main meetings. And with German being the main conference language it was pretty uninteresting for an international audience.

It was not (truly) boring and I significantly improved my vim configuration *g*, got (false) information on some LaTeX-options, felt competent and spend very much money on food and caffeine.

The best speeches I heard where about Modsecurity and PosixCapabilities.

It’s very likly I will visit LinuxTag again next year, but I will see it more like a nice trip to the capital - visit friends, museums and enjoy the beautiful parts of the town.

PS: Jono’s a true community specialist - he knows his buissiness - I decided to take a leaf out of his book.