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Frequently asked questions for the KVIrc irc client.
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Q: Make output breaks on an error similar to this:
Making all in po
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kvirc/po'
msgfmt [ -dv ] [ - ] [ name ... ]
it.mo: File not found
make[1]: *** [it.mo] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kvirc/po'
A: You have a non GNU msgfmt program that does not support the -o option.
Install the GNU gettext package (available from your closest GNU FTP site mirror)
or try adding the --without-locale option to the ./configure commandline.
###############################################################################
Q: KVIrc aborts with the following error:
"Fatal IO error: client killed"
A: You probably have non thread safe X libraries.
You must recompile or reinstall the X libraries (yes , I know that it
is not an easy task , but there is no other solution)
NOTE : If your system is libc5 based
you will first have to upgrade to glibc2 (with threads support).
Threads are not supported at all in libc5.
If you choose to recompile by yourself the X libs,
make sure that you're compiling it with the threads support.
(Check the documentation that comes with the package for
informations on how to do it).
###############################################################################
Q: I cannot find documentation about...
A: If you cannot find documentation about a specific topic in the
"run-time" help files , it is probably because it has not been written yet.
You may find more help on the #kvirc or #linux channel belonging to your
favorite Irc network.
Consider also having a look at the KVIrc sources and writing some docs
:)
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Q: ./configure aborts with an error saying that the qt library/includes cannot be found
A: Ensure that you have installed properly the Qt library , and the version is >= 2.1
Try passing the following options to ./configure:
--with-qt-include-dir="your_path_to_the_qt_include_files"
--with-qt-library-dir="your_path_to_the_qt_library_directory"
--with-qt-moc="your_path_to_the_qt_moc_compiler"
Example:
If you have downloaded the qt package and installed it in
/home/myusername/qt , your 'configure' options are:
--with-qt-include-dir="/usr/myusername/qt/include"
--with-qt-library-dir="/usr/myusername/qt/lib"
--with-qt-moc="/usr/myusername/qt/bin/moc"
You may find useful also passing '--without-qt-check'.
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Q: When I try to run KVIrc I get: 'libkvilib.so.1.0.0 error in loading shared libraries...'
A: You must add /usr/local/lib to your /etc/ld.so.conf and then run 'ldconfig'.
You may need also to add /usr/local/lib to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.
If you have changed the libraries installation directory
in configure , change the "/usr/local/lib" directory accordingly.
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Q: The search-help feature does not work:
I get something as "execvp failed for file kvi2_search_help : No such file"
A: The directory where the search script is located is not on your path.
This directory is usually the same as the one that the kvirc binary is in.
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Q: Some dialog windows seem to disappear misteriously...
A: The problem is that Window Managers act as they want, and may only accept 'hints'.
First open the 'misc options' dialog and toggle the
"'Hide/Show' hack for brain damaged WM" option , then
restart KVIrc. It should work now.
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Q: I cannot connect to any server:
- KVIrc seems to have problems with looking up server hostnames.
- DNS queries always fail with an error.
A: KVIrc uses threads to perform asynchronous DNS calls.
You may try to force synchronous (blocking) calls by enabling
the "Force synchronous DNS calls" option in the server options dialog.
If this does not help you (really strange and unreported yet) , you will
need to resolve the hosts manually and specify the server IPs instead
of the server names.
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Q: I cannot use my national characters...
(and similar questions)
A: The current IRC protocol implementation has major problems
with national character sets; IRC has NO SUPPORT FOR UNICODE.
(There is a "hack" protocol called IRCX , that has some support
for UNICODE , but it is NOT the solution.)
The irc protocol allows to send only 8-bit characters.
People with LATIN1 character set do not have this problem,
but other charsets are often horribly distorted.
This is a sum of many causes:
- Some implementations of IRCD are not 8bit clean,
and allow only ASCII (7bit) to survive through the data streams.
This is what the --with-charset-translation configure option is for:
it allows remapping non-Latin1 charsets to something that might fit in 7bits.
(The remapping is often used by people that have more than
one character set in their locale, to map their local character set to the
widely used one on IRC)
- The font that you use to display the text must have the right character
set (see below).
- Qt uses UNICODE internally , and the mapping between an 8bit character
set and UNICODE must be done by following special rules for every charset.
This is what --with-local-8bit-encoding configure option is for.
To use your national character sets:
You need to pass the --with-local-8bit-encoding switch
to the ./configure script at compilation time
*AND*
YOU NEED TO CHOOSE THE CORRECT FONT FOR THE TEXT VIEW WIDGET
AND FOR THE INPUT LINE (at runtime).
Note:
The most common problem with kvirc is that users
can see the national characters in the text view but not
in the input line;
It is because you have to choose the correct font for
the input line too!!!
The --with-local-8bit-encoding switch is MANDATORY for those
that use charsets different than LATIN1. It will enable the correct
character conversion between the Qt UNICODE strings and the
simple char * strings widely used in KVIrc.
Micro-HOWTO:
- What is a charset ?
The text is rappresented as a sequece of bytes (byte -> 8-bits).
Each character is mapped to a digit in range [0-255].
The characters from 0 to 127 are (usually) standardized;
this range is called the ASCII subset (ASCII character -> 7-bits).
So for example the digit 32 represents a 'space' character,
65 represents an 'A' , 98 represents a 'b'.
Since 255 numbers are not enough to rappresent all the possible
characters used in the world , the digits from
128 to 255 are mapped in different ways, depending
on the language that we want to rappresent.
For example , greek users might associate the character 201
with the capital letter ALPHA.
These localized mappings are standardized and are called
CHARACTER SETS (or charsets).
There are several standard charsets available:
ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) is the name of the charset used in
eastern Europe.
ISO-8859-8 is a charset used in the Hebrew language.
KOI8R is a charset used in some countries
of the ex-Soviet Union.
Some cuntries/languages have more than one standard
character sets: KOI8R is not the only cyryllic charset
available , Windows has a specific charset for that purpose.
There are several resources all around the net that will
help you in choosing the character set that matches your needs.
It is just a matter of using a search engine.
- What is a font ?
A font is a graphic resource.
It "maps" numbers in range [0-255] to the graphic rappresentation
of the corresponding character.
For example , it maps the number 111 (ASCII 'o' character)
to a small circle, the number 105 (ASCII 'i' character)
to a vertical line and a dot placed on top of it.
It is now clear that each font is bound to a specific character set.
If you're "speaking" greek , and in your charset the character
186 is mapped to the "capital letter delta" , you need a font
that matches your charset and maps the character 186 to a triangle
that is the rappresentation of the "capital letter delta".
(186 <-> DELTA is just a sample association).
- How to choose the correct font ?
The major communication problem is that different users
use different character sets.
If you're going to "speak" on a channel where the cyryllic
characters are used , you must use a cyryllic font.
More:
The character set of your font MUST BE THE EXACTLY
the same as the one used by the other people that you are talking
with. Using a different character set is more or less equivalent to
speaking a different language.
So if everyone on the channel is using KOI8R , you MUST
use a font that maps the KOI8R characters to the
proper graphic rappresentations, otherwise you will NOT be
able to read nor speak anything.
You can workaround this by using the charset translation
(--with-charset-translation option); you can remap the "remote" charset
to your local one when receiving data and do the inverse-mapping when sending data.
In this way , if you're using KOI8R locally , but everyone on IRC is using the
Windows Cyryllic charset, you can map Windows->KOI8R when receiving and KOI8R->Windows
when sending. In this case the correct font to use is the one with the KOI8R charset,
even if others are "speaking" by using the Windows charset.
- Finding more info:
As said before , it is just a matter of using a search engine.
The net is full of resources about that.
An important resource for the linux users are the national
HOWTOs (Cyrillic-HOWTO , Hebrew-HOWTO...).
These can be found on your distribution CD or on your favorite
"linux" site (on www.linux.org you will be able to find all the
available HOWTO documents).
Hehe... WE WANT REAL UNICODE IRC :)
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Q: Loading the xmms plugin causes some troubles.
At plugin load time kvirc complain this message on stderr:
[libkvixmms] : Could not load libxmms : /usr/X11R6/lib/libxmms.so:
undefined symbol: gtk_widget_destroy
A: This seems to be a problem in libxmms from the rpm installation packet.
Recompiling and installing xmms from sources seems solve the problem,
However , you may also try to reinstall xmms from original bin rpm's
at http://www.xmms.org
Szymon Stefanek <kvirc@tin.it>
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