Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 November 8

= November 8 =

Inkscape question - making fills actually fill the area within the lines
I'm not sure why I can't find any info on the internet regarding this, but apparently it's not just me experiencing it. Inkscape colours between the lines at the level of a three year old. The fill always has a buffer of sorts between it and the paths surrounding it. The width of the buffer is dependent on the zoom level and the width of the path stroke. Even when two fills abut one another, there is a space between them.

So how do I get inkscape to fill like... well... every other piece of software ever made? -  Floydian  τ ¢  00:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * There is a setting "Grow/Shrink by", make sure that's not a negative number. In fact, Ideally you'd make sure it was slightly positive. Also make sure that the "Threshold" is set to a small, but non-zero number.
 * However, what you're probably seeing is the stroke around the fill object.  Inkscape is vector based, so it can't just flood-fill, it has to make a new shape that fills the gap.  In Inkscape each object has a fill color and an outline (aka "stroke") color.  Probably your fill object has the stroke set to clear.   Just click on it, and change the stroke color like you would any other shape.
 * Hope this helps. APL (talk) 05:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with APL's assessment. Try creating a few squares. One with red outline and blue fill, one with red outline and red fill, and one with "no" outline (i.e. no stroke paint) and red fill. You can also fill with gradients, patterns, etc. but this will illustrate the basic concepts. As you move these objects over/under eachother, it should become clear how Inkscape is thinking of the vector objects. But the main point is that it is a vector graphics program. In this case,"flood fill" as in Gimp and MS Paint, etc doesn't really exist! For your purposes, you may want no paint on the edge strokes, and set the edge width to 0. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:00, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * If I set the stroke to 0 (on the outline), it vanishes and can't be used. I sorta understand the way inkscape is doing things (the fill is a separate entity from the paths that make up the initial outline), but it's really nonesense given the precision an svg can offer otherwise to have this lone feature that is totally preciseness. The threshold and grow/shrink parameters are something I missed before now, and they certainly help... however, its almost like using wood glue to make up for crappy jigsaw craftspersonship. Is there no way to make the stroke around the fill snap to the outline that defines said fill? What about masking (Fill behind the outline beyond the outline, select the fill and outline, go to object->clip->set, bada-bing bada-boom; ideal in theory but whack-attack when I try it)? I know you can snap the fill after the fact, but I'm making a map with the shoreline of the Great Lakes - which, suffice to say - has a million odd points, with ~10 metre precision, covering the entire 1.1 million square km (416 000 mi2) of Ontario! -  Floydian  τ ¢  09:38, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Oldest computer able to softdecode video?
What is the oldest computer that would be able in realtime to software decode MPEG-2 480i/50 (720x480) video with 160 kbit/s sound in MPEG-2 layer 1 stereo 32 kHz ..? It's about the definition of how the law is defined. Perhaps a DEC-20 could handle it? power would be an issue though.. Electron9 (talk) 01:10, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * If you don't care about displaying the result, many of the older vector supercomputers could probably turn an MPEG-2 data stream into a series of bitmaps in real time. --Carnildo (talk) 02:52, 9 November 2013 (UTC)


 * A custom graphics card shouldn't be that hard. Ie dual ported DRAM where one side is clocked with display frequencies. Electron9 (talk) 03:16, 9 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Graphics card memory + (RAM / 10) = about how much video memory (aka buffer) you'll have. If your video card supports the driver / plugins to play a video, chances are it can. The question is just how much it can buffer the video. For example, a 480i video (720x640) is roughly 65–100 kbps as a compressed flv (Flash) video or 300–400 kbps as an mpeg video (which, surprisingly, has far worse distortion over the more compact flv). Regardless, anything post-Y2K should be able to (albeit sluggishly, perhaps) handle a video... but, if your video card is sporting under a megabyte of umph (which is some DOS/Commodore64 level old-school!), it's gonna be beyond jittery. Just remember the golden rule of computers; the chain of processing, memory, bandwidth and overall computing strength can never be stronger than the weakest link.


 * PS Confession: The preceding was a completely inexperienced / theoretical answer; hopefully the many techies around these here parts can clarify my absolute guesswork / assumptions.


 * Tl;dr: any video card that can handle the codecs for today's formats can likely play, though possibly with mucho lag, streaming videos. -  Floydian  τ ¢  10:02, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Where can I download this specific Linux kernel version?
I'm compiling a device driver's source code which depends on Linux 2.6.32 and my current Linux distribution installed on my machine has a kernel of version "2.6.32.57". I tried to get the kernel source from git repo. but I can't find "2.6.32.57" or "2.6.32-57" in the repo. So does anyone knows where can I get "2.6.32.57" or "2.6.32-57" kernel source?

chotofu@chotofu-K56CA:~/data/__git/_tmp/linux$ git tag | grep -i '2.6.32' v2.6.32 v2.6.32-rc1 v2.6.32-rc2 v2.6.32-rc3 v2.6.32-rc4 v2.6.32-rc5 v2.6.32-rc6 v2.6.32-rc7 v2.6.32-rc8 chotofu@chotofu-K56CA:~/data/__git/_tmp/linux$ git remote -v origin	http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git (fetch) origin	http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git (push)

-- Justin545 (talk) 02:44, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Some googling reveals this question on Stack Overflow. Apparantly you have to use git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git instead of Linus' repo to get these tags.
 * Alternatively you can get tars from kernel.org. --Tokikake (talk) 13:03, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you, it works!. - Justin545 (talk) 12:13, 9 November 2013 (UTC)


 * This is a frequently asked question, actually. If you mean 2.6.32-57, and not 2.6.32.57 - the hyphen makes a big difference! - then your kernel was modified by the distributor, based on 2.6.32.  You will need to get the source from the distributor if you are concerned by the delta between 2.36.32 and 2.36.32-57.  Nimur (talk) 15:58, 9 November 2013 (UTC)