Release v1.5.4

This is a straightforward update release to v1.5.3. If you are already on v1.5.3, you can upgrade by following the instructions below (or wait for the automated weekly update to do (most of) this for you; note however, that a few manual steps are still required for full v1.5.4 functionality, so you may wish to just follow the manual route anyway).

Changes in this release (see main project page for further details):

• Added the media-video/smtube package. This provides a simple web-based front end allowing YouTube videos to be searched and selected, which are then handed off to media-video/smplayer for playback. This, in turn, is configured to use media-video/mpv under the hood, and can play (on an RPi4 with a fast Internet connection) 1080p videos at 30fps without glitching (it can use both v4l2m2m and MMAL endpoints for appropriate video types). (It would be nice if the vanilla firefox or chromium browsers could make use of the v4l2m2m codec endpoints, but they currently cannot, in any straightforward manner, so this tool at least provides an option for those wishing to watch hi-res video in the near term.)

• Dropped the suggested use of distcc-pump from /etc/portage/make.conf, following Gentoo bug 702146.

• Added a first cut build of bzt's usbimager program (lightweight alternative to Etcher) (ebuild here, upstream here).

• Turned on anti-aliasing and full hinting for screen fonts by default.

• Made switching keyboard layouts more straightforward, by adding the xfce-extra/xfce4-xkb-plugin into the top panel bar, and pre-populating two simple layouts (gb and us) in the config accessed via Applications→Settings→Keyboard, Layout tab. Also added xfce-extra/xfce4-kbsetup; this package installs a service, activated upon graphical login, which initialises the user's preferred keyboard layouts (if these have been set up), as Xfce does not do that correctly at the moment.

• Upgraded the shipped kernels, to bcm{rpi3,2711}-kernel-bis-bin-4.19.106.20200225, and boot firmware, to sys-boot/rpi3-64bit-firmware-1.20200212.

• Various minor ebuild tidy-ups.

• All packages brought up-to-date against the Gentoo tree, as of 4 Mar 2020. So e.g., chromium bumped to 82.0.4068.4, firefox to 73.0.1, libreoffice to 6.3.5.2 etc.

Upgrading from an Earlier Release of the Image

Users downloading this v1.5.4 image directly can of course omit the instructions below; as all settings have been correctly set up for you already.

Users on releases earlier than v1.5.3 should follow the manual upgrade instructions to 1.5.3 below; the final step genup therein will actually bring you (most of the way) to v1.5.4 now. Once done, continue at the "Finalizing the upgrade" section, below.

To upgrade manually (from v1.5.3), simply issue (working as root):

pi64 ~ # genup

Let this run to completion. Once done, reboot to start using the updated kernel, and once back up again run:

pi64 ~ # dispatch-conf

to review any modified configuration files. If in doubt, press u when prompted, to use the new copy of the file (you can learn more about using the dispatch-conf tool here).

Once that's done, verify you are on >=v1.5.4, by issuing:

pi64 ~ # eix rpi-64bit-meta

Finalizing the upgrade

There are three small, final steps required to complete the upgrade to v1.5.4 (which genup cannot do for you).

The first is to ensure that your copy of smplayer is correctly configured. To do so, select Applications→Multimedia→SMPlayer. When the application opens, select Options→Preferences. In the General unit (in the left-hand list), General tab (the preferences should open here by default), select Other... from the Multimedia engine: dropdown, and enter /usr/bin/mpv in the text box immediately to the right of this. Then, click on the Video tab, select gpu in the Output driver: dropdown, and turn on the Direct rendering and Double buffering checkboxes. Next, click on the Network unit (in the left-hand list) and there, ensure the Support for video sites: dropdown is set to Auto, and in the Options for YouTube section below that, choose 1080p in the Playback quality: dropdown (RPi3B/B+ users, or those with a slower Internet connection, may wish to select 720p instead), and select the Use adaptive streams (resolution up to 4K) checkbox. It is generally better to leave the Use 60fps if available checkbox unselected. With that done, click OK to save the settings, and close smplayer.

Note, although confusingly there are a set of resolution settings in smtube's GUI also, they will not affect playback of YouTube videos sent to smplayer, so you need to make the changes above to have these apply.

The second step is to ensure your keyboard layouts are correctly configured for the switcher plugin (which you will also need to add to the top panel, per instructions following). Begin by adding any necessary layouts. To do so, click Applications→Settings→Keyboard, select the Layout tab, uncheck Use system defaults, and then, in the Keyboard layout section, click on Add to insert the layouts you need to use. For example, as shipped, the v1.5.4 the image has English (UK) and English (US) layouts provisioned, but you should obviously choose whatever works for your locale. Do not add more than four layouts (or the switcher plugin will not work correctly). You can use the arrow keys to re-order the list (if you have more than one layout); the one at the top will be the default at session startup. Lastly, select Win+Space in the Change layout option drop-down (for conformance with the shipped version; you can of course follow your own preferences here too). This is the 'hotkey' you can use to cycle between your provisioned keyboard layouts on the fly. Once done, click on Close to dismiss the dialog.

You can now add the keyboard layout switcher plugin into the top panel bar. To do so, right-click in an empty area of that bar, and in the context menu that appears, choose Panel→Add New Items.... In the dialog that appears, select the Keyboard Layouts item from the list (you may need to scroll down to see it), and click Add. A flag icon should appear in the panel, most likely at the far right of your screen. Right-click on this, choose Move, place the cursor where on the top panel bar you want the keyboard layout chooser to be, and left-click to place it. Then, right-click on the flag icon again, and this time select Properties from the drop-down menu. In the dialog that opens, choose (for conformance with the shipped image - you may of course choose your own settings as desired) System from the Show layout as: drop-down, Country from the Layout name: drop-down, and globally from the Manage layout: drop-down. Then click Close to save the settings.

You should now be able to use your new keyboard layouts! If you have more than one, clicking on the switcher plugin in the top panel bar will cycle through them, or, you can also use the "change layout option" key-combo you set-up earlier (by default, if you have been following these instructions, that will be Windows KeySpace).

The third and final step is to turn on font anti-aliasing. To do this, select Applications→Settings→Appearance, select the Fonts tab, and select the Enable anti-aliasing checkbox. Then, selectFull from the Hinting: dropdown menu.

Tip: if you know the sub-pixel ordering of your display, select it in the eponymous dropdown in this dialog - it can materially improve the quality of your display.

When done, click Close to exit the dialog.

And that's it: congratulations, you should now be running v1.5.4!