OpenSUSE Linux Rants
Tips, tricks, how-tos, opinions, and news regarding OpenSUSE Linux
- My Resume
Tips, tricks, how-tos, opinions, and news regarding OpenSUSE Linux
- My Resume
OpenSUSE has another beta out. This time it’s beta 5. Here are the announcements, both written by Joe Brockmeier,
Greetings, openSUSE fans! We have another development release ready for your testing pleasure. openSUSE 11.1 beta 5 is now available for immediate download and testing.
You may have noticed that we were scheduled to release RC 1 today. However, as Stephan Kulow mentioned on openSUSE-Factory list on Tuesday, we have several blocker bugs and 11 P1 bugs still present. While we’re ready to do another release today, we decided that it wasn’t ready to be called a release candidate. This shouldn’t push back the final release, but it will mean that we will only plan to have one release candidate.
With just a little more than a month before the public release on December 18th, there’s still plenty to do. So, roll up your sleeves and start downloading!
We all want openSUSE 11.1 to be the best release yet, and we need your help to get there. This release is ready for widespread testing, and we’re encouraging everyone to download and test the beta releases. Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a beta release, and is not suitable for use on production systems. Though many openSUSE users can and do use the Factory distribution and/or beta release for day-to-day work we want to stress that it’s entirely possible that you will encounter serious bugs.
See openSUSE.org/Testing for more information on testing.
To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the #openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.
Major changes in this release include:
See the Factory News page for changes in the Factory distribution between release announcements. DistroWatch also carries an expanded list of packages being shipped in the Factory distribution.
OpenOffice.org 3.0 is shaping up nicely for 11.1. Petr Mladek has sent in the following new and remaining bugs for OpenOffice.org:
+ OOo does not start in KDE when OpenOffice_org-gnome is installed (bnc#442678)
+ Pyuno components are still not registered
+ Mono integration is not correctly installed
+ Localized strings are not updated from extra sources
+ The user configuration includes symlinks to /usr/share/ooo3 instead of real files. This may be a feature, but it might also cause problems in the future
+ Missing OOo-sdk compat stuff (bnc#428403)
+ Suse-puzzler.xls works only partly; e.h. “Sneaky Peak” or “About” works but the “Shuffle” does nothing. Also, you can’t move the puzzle pieces with a mouse.
These bugs are being worked on for RC1.
11.1 beta 5 can be found at http://software.opensuse.org/developer. You can find mirrors that have beta 5 images here:
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1-Beta5/iso/
This release does include PPC media, so users with PowerPC machines have the opportunity to test beta 5 on those as well.
While many bugs have been eliminated since the last beta, we still have a few remaining (and new) bugs that testers should be aware of:
Selecting KDE 3.5 also installs KDE4 workspace and defaults to KDE4. Workaround: Choose KDE3 desktop at login manager.
Installation via network on Pegasos2 and Efika is not possible since the initial image does not contain the network drivers (they are available after installation)
Bug #439126: Hibernation does not work with 32-bit PAE kernels.
Bug #432980: On some Intel chipsets (945GM) display can’t wake from sleep.
Bug #444127: kupdateapplet shows error when license is requested
Bug #437735: printers are not installed
Bug #444519: the i586 DVD does not contain any i686 glibc
Note to openSUSE contributors: If you have any changes or features to call out for future release announcements, please send an email to Zonker with any information that should be in that announcement. (Preferably at least two days before the scheduled release.
And here’s the announcement from the mailing list:
Greetings, openSUSE fans! We have another development release ready
for your testing pleasure. openSUSE 11.1 beta 5 is now available for
immediate download and testing.You may have noticed that we were scheduled to release RC 1 today.
However, as Stephan Kulow mentioned on openSUSE-Factory list [1] on
Tuesday, we have several blocker bugs and 11 P1 bugs still present.
While we’re ready to do another release today, we decided that itwasn’t ready to be called a release candidate. This shouldn’t push
back the final release, but it will mean that we will only plan to
have one release candidate.With just a little more than a month [2] before the public release on
December 18th, there’s still plenty to do. So, roll up your sleeves
and start downloading!Call for Testing
================We all want openSUSE 11.1 to be the best release yet, and we need your
help to get there. This release is ready for widespread testing, and
we’re encouraging everyone to download and test the beta releases.
Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know
about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a
beta release, and is not suitable for use on production systems.
Though many openSUSE users can and do use the Factory distribution
and/or beta release for day-to-day work we want to stress that it’sentirely possible that you will encounter serious bugs.
See openSUSE.org/Testing for more information on testing.
To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you
subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the
#openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.What’s changed since beta 4?
============================Major changes in this release include:
* More 11.1 branding is now in place.
* Upgrade to PackageKit 0.3.9.
* KDE4: NetworkManager and power management Plasmoids now available
* Integration of Smolt finished
* More translations! [3]
* Linux kernel updated to 2.6.27.5
* KDE 4.1.3* Xfce 4.4.3
* Many updated packages, including: Amarok, Banshee, Blender, Digikam,
Bazaar, Frozen Bubble, The GIMP, LyX, and Wine.See the Factory News page for changes in the Factory distribution
between release announcements. [4] DistroWatch also carries an
expanded list of packages being shipped in the Factory distribution.
[5]OpenOffice.org 3.0 is shaping up nicely for 11.1. Petr Mladek has sent
in the following new and remaining bugs for OpenOffice.org:
+ OOo does not start in KDE when OpenOffice_org-gnome is installed (bnc#442678)
+ Pyuno components are still not registered
+ Mono integration is not correctly installed
+ Localized strings are not updated from extra sources
+ The user configuration includes symlinks to /usr/share/ooo3 instead
of real files. This may be a feature, but it might also cause problems
in the future+ Missing OOo-sdk compat stuff (bnc#428403)
+ Suse-puzzler.xls works only partly; e.h. “Sneaky Peak” or “About”
works but the “Shuffle” does nothing. Also, you can’t move the puzzle
pieces with a mouse.These bugs are being worked on for RC1.
Media and Download
==================11.1 beta 5 can be found at http://software.opensuse.org/developer.
You can find mirrors that have beta 5 images here:http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1-Beta5/iso/
This release does include PPC media, so users with PowerPC machines
have the opportunity to test beta 5 on those as well.Most Annoying Bugs
==================
While many bugs have been eliminated since the last beta, we still
have a few remaining (and new) bugs that testers should be aware of:Selecting KDE 3.5 also installs KDE4 workspace and defaults to KDE4.
Workaround: Choose KDE3 desktop at login manager.
Installation via network on Pegasos2 and Efika is not possible since
the initial image does not contain the network drivers (they are
available after installation)Bug #439126: Hibernation does not work with 32-bit PAE kernels.
Bug #432980: On some Intel chipsets (945GM) display can’t wake from sleep.
Bug #444127: kupdateapplet shows error when license is requested
Bug #437735: printers are not installed
Bug #444519: the i586 DVD does not contain any i686 glibcFuture Release Announcements
============================Note to openSUSE contributors: If you have any changes or features to
call out for future release announcements, please send an email to
Zonker (zonker@xxxxxxxxxxxx) with any information that should be in
that announcement. (Preferably at least two days before the scheduled
release.[1] http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2008-11/msg00402.html
[2] http://en.opensuse.org/Roadmap
[3] http://i18n.opensuse.org/stats/trunk/toplist.php[4] http://en.opensuse.org/Factory/News
[5] http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=suseHave a lot of fun!
–
Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier
openSUSE Community Manager
jzb@xxxxxxxxxxhttp://zonker.opensuse.org/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/
So there you have it. Grab the DVD via bittorrent and take a look!
For awhile now, I’ve thought that Novell should offer a way for people to migrate to their enterprise products. Well, according to their press release, “Novell Announces New Program to Aid Transition to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server,” apparently, they’ve caught the vision. It’s nice to see that they’re actually
“The new program is in response to growing customer demand for help as they make the strategic decision to transition their data center Linux infrastructure from existing third-party distributions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS, to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Many times, customers who want to move between platforms are constrained by factors such as IT resource limitations, application migration scheduling and training costs, which means they need time to make an orderly transition. In response to these challenges, Novell is providing technical support for a customer’s existing Linux environment and is also delivering training and tools to ensure the transition to the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform is smooth and successful.”
That seems like a strong move on their part, and shows their dedication to helping potential customers.
I stole this straight from Joe Brockmeier’s blog, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity. This is a really cool list.
He has a list of the things that are unique about openSUSE over other distributions. Here’s the list he provided:
Nice work, Joe! Head on over to his blog entry to read the whole posting.
School is quite a bit funner than I remember. 
However, I am taking an interesting class dealing with storyboarding for movies. We have to do these things called “animatics.” You all know what a movie storyboard is, right? If not, google “movie storyboards” and read up. The boiled down version is that it is a scene-by-scene (generally using stills) depiction of the sequences of a movie. Could be a short movie. Could be a scene.
Well, an animatic is where you take these storyboarding pictures and make a glorified slide show with them. You are able to put in sound effects, filler music, placeholder dialogue, and other assets to make the storyboard much more like the movie will actually be.
So our professor gave us a few exercises. He gave us a series of drawings, a basic plot, and told us to make an animatic out of them.
What tool did I turn to? When all was said and done, it was Cinelerra, the non-linear video editor for Linux:
Click for larger image
Just to refresh, these are not movies, but more like an indicator of where people will be standing, what kind of shots will be used, what kind of lighting there might be, etc.
With that, if you’d like to take a look at what I finally turned in for these three projects created with Cinelerra, here you are:
2.8 Mb - Ogg Theora format - right-click, save as…
7.2 Mb - Ogg Theora format - right-click, save as…
3.9 Mb - Ogg Theora format - right-click, save as…
Spielberg I am not. Lucas I am not. But at least I got credit for doing the exercises.
Here is a nice demo of the new Lancelot menu for KDE 4.1:
From a linux.com article on Lancelot:
“KDE 4 is barely eight months old, and already it has three options for a main menu. Until now, users have either used the default Kickoff, which makes for awkward navigation of the menu tree, or reverted to the familiar but unwieldy classic menu. Now, with the first full release of Lancelot, users have another option that overcomes the shortcomings of both other alternatives and gives KDE 4 a thoroughly modern menu.”
“According to comments on the project Web page by main developer Ivan Čukić, Lancelot started life as a SuperKaramba applet for organizing desktop icons. Its name is a homage to Monty Python and the Holy Grail — as evidenced by the default grail icon — as well as a pun on “launch-a-lot.” As Čukić ported it to the new KDE desktop, the project changed in nature, first to keep pace with rumors about it, and then because of his dissatisfaction with Kickoff. Čukić is apparently not alone in his dissatisfaction, because within days of the 1.0 release being announced, Lancelot packages started to appear in many major distributions.”
Read “Lancelot reaches Holy Grail of KDE menu.”
From my good buddy Michael Loeffler, on OpenSuse news:
The openSUSE survey results are out now. The survey we made in July/August time frame attracted over 12,000 participants. Here is a short summary on changes compared to the last one we did approximately 1 1/2 year ago with the openSUSE 10.2 release. The summary is in the same order as the questions are.
meanwhile over 90% of our users have broadband access and 3/4 of them have a flat rate. Percentage of people having slow or no internet connection is below 5%. Anyway we should find a way getting our distro physically to emerging countries as we fear they didn?t even take part at the survey due to internet issues 
usage of an OS called Windows dropped from 31% to 21% which either tells us people do the full step to Linux or we may lose newbies? Vista is not there yet, XP usage is approx. 3 times larger then Vista usage KDE4 is already adopted by kind of 40% out of all KDE users, this is quite impressive to us as we?re mainly talking about KDE 4.0 which isn?t that mature as KDE 4.1 is today (yes, we know KDE 4.1 still needs some work to be perfect ;-)) involvement in openSUSE has risen strongly, from 15% to 25% and that?s all over the place - be it openSUSE Build Service, bug reporting, openSUSE Forums or others. We?ve seen happily that the main reasons for not being involved in the openSUSE project was no time or familiy. But some people mentioned they don?t know how or it?s not clear where to start. We definitely need to address the latter one. openSUSE and the first experience with Linux is down from 11% to 6%, that either tells us users from other Linux distros are joining or we?re losing people new to Linux rating for ?Ease of installation? climbed up strongly, obviously the streamlined installation workflow was the right thing to do. On the question what should be changed for future versions the wish for more software packages declined. So it looks like the openSUSE Build Service and the 1-click installation helps many users to get additional software from.
The things above are for us the most eye catching results. In general the results are pretty similar to the last survey. For comparison you find the old survey on the UX page. As you see those results - at least some times - open room for interpretation in one or the other direction. For feedback please use the opensuse-project mailing list.
We want to thank all people participated at the survey and some of them will receive soon an openSUSE t-shirt or cap.
Linux is continuing to grow with much momentum. One of the reasons that this is the case is because non-technical users who don’t want to learn Linux can use it without having to learn it. In other words, Linux has become much more intuitive and user-friendly. Especially distributions like Ubuntu and OpenSUSE. Plus, it’s just better than everything else. *wink*
Excerpt:
“47% of respondents said they would use or evaluate Linux in the coming year, with lower cost as the primary driver. But the largest percentage said they had no further plans to migrate from Unix to Linux, indicating that future Linux growth would be at the expense of other platforms. In response to a different question, 23% said that whenever possible they would migrate from Windows to Linux, and another 16% said that to avoid a Windows upgrade, they would migrate to Linux. Also expanding Linux use in the data center is a sharp projected upswing in use for its built-in virtualization. Although Red Hat and SUSE Xen-based virtualization tally only about 2.5% apiece of deployments currently, respondents’ projections for the technology climb steeply to 10% for Red Hat and 5% for SUSE over the next year.”
Take a look at “Is Linux growing at Windows’ or Unix’s expense?.”
“The most powerful physics project in the history of the known universe - The $10 Billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC)- shot its first light speed beam this morning around its 27 km circuit. Beyond the 20 years it took to build and half of all the world’s astrophysicists, it also takes another key ingredient to make LHC work — Linux.” How much better could you say it?
Not only that, we have a screenshot of their Linux usage. Apparently, they are using KDE, the best desktop environment there is:
Click for larger image
Read “Large Hadron Collider - powered by Linux.”
The London Stock Exchange completely crashed running Windows 2003 servers, MSSQL Server 2000, and custom .NET applications written by Microsoft and Accenture. The systems were down for nearly 7 hours. Yet another reason not to use M$ software in mission-critical situations, especially those that affect the economy of a country. I’m guessing they’ll start looking at something more stable, like Linux.
Excerpt:
“It should have been a great day on the London Stock Exchange. The U.S. government had announced on the Sunday before that it was coming to the rescue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Trading would have been extremely brisk, but then, at 9:15 AM GMT, the Exchange’s software failed due to “connectivity issues.” Six-hours and 45-minutes later, the London Exchange, along with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which uses the LSE’s trading platform TradElec, were finally back up.”
Read more about why the London Stock Exchange should switch to Linux
How fun is school.
Yeah, it’s not. Especially when you’re starting a new job, too.
The fun part is, I got a dark red 2004 Nissan Maxima. Which I am currently enjoying a great deal.
None of which has to do with Linux. But it’s my blog and I get the liberty of going off topic. At least I’m posting.
So I thought I’d take on the challenge of doing a triple-boot setup on my laptop. Yawn, right? Everyone’s done that.
Except not everyone has done it with Windows Vista, MacOS X Leopard, and OpenSUSE 11.0 all on the same non-Mac machine. A machine much like my Dell Inspiron E1705.
I took said challenge, and it only took about 23 tries before I got it.
Here are some pictures of the machine booting, logging into, and the desktop of each OS:
OpenSUSE 11.0
booting
Click for larger image
login
Click for larger image
desktop
Click for larger image
MacOS Leopard
booting
Click for larger image
login
Click for larger image
desktop
Click for larger image
Windows Vista
booting
Click for larger image
login
Click for larger image
desktop
Click for larger image
Most often, I will be hanging out in the OpenSUSE 11.0 installation. For that annoying software that only runs in Windows, I am forced, completely against my will, to have it on the machine, as well. And, I have recently become interested in the iPhone SDK, which of course only runs in MacOS 10.5.2 (Leopard) or newer. Hence, the need for all three OSes. And, I have just never seen it done, so I thought I’d jump in and do it. Instructions mostly came from here.
Fascinating.
So, back to the off-topic. I am selling a white 2004 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor (click for larger image):
For all the information you could ever want about the car, including lots of pictures, take a look at this page.
The BSOD strikes again, this time at the Olympic torch lighting ceremony:
What’s funny is that China is assembling their own distribution of Linux…
Excerpt:
“Well, this is just perfect. At the exact moment Li Ning was rounding the lip of the Bird’s Nest during the amazing torch-lighting climax, someone snapped this photo of our good friend the BSOD nestled among the Nest’s steel twigs.”
Dell is sure making moves in the right direction with Linux! They have a new machine that is essentially “instant-on” and gives you access to email and the Internet without booting the entire Linux operating system.
Excerpt from Tectonic:
“The really interesting news for Linux fans, however, was Dell’s new “Latitude ON” system which allows for almost instant-on booting when you want to check an email or something on the Internet without booting the entire operating system.”
Read more about these Linux machines from Tectonic
A CrunchGear article explains more:
“By using a secondary processor with its own Linux based OS, the primary CPU is bypassed for instant access to a variety of functions. Think BlackBerry style. Contacts, calendar, email – that kind of stuff – opened up directly on your laptop without firing up the whole system. The dedicated sub-system should also preserve battery life by avoiding the power drain of larger applications.”
Read more about the Linux-powered Dell Latitude E4200 and E4300 from Crunchgear
The openSUSE Project is proud to announce the 1.0 release of the openSUSE Build Service. The 1.0 release provides all the features necessary to support building openSUSE in the public build systems and allowing direct contributions to openSUSE from all contributors. Developers can now submit contributions to openSUSE directly at build.opensuse.org.
The openSUSE Build Service allows developers to create and maintain packages for openSUSE and many other Linux distributions, including CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, Red Hat, and Ubuntu. With the 1.0 release, the openSUSE Build Service expands its scope to building the entire openSUSE release, and provides everyone with the same access and transparent interface to work on the openSUSE distribution.
The openSUSE Build Service has offered a simple collaboration system since its inception for groups to work closely together on packages or solutions stacks. The 1.0 release improves on existing functionality to allow the Build Service to scale to larger projects like openSUSE’s Factory distribution, and to allow building openSUSE’s stable releases in the open.
What the changes mean for contributors:
The majority of this functionality is implemented on the server side. The rest can be implemented by the various Build Service clients, so that contributors can take advantage of the new features.
The Build Service team has also introduced a number of smaller improvements and bugfixes to make the system more scalable and usable.
The openSUSE Build Service is now considered “feature complete” for collaboration. The Build Service team is looking for additional feedback on improving the openSUSE Build Service as it will now be the standard tool for working on the distribution.
People seemed to have a good time with my last Linux T-shirt post, so here’s another one for you. I really like this one:
Click for a slightly larger version.
So again, where can I get one of these?
If you haven’t already, take a look at the new features available with the new Linux Flash 10 Beta. Such new features include:
3D Effects
Custom Filters and Effects
Advanced Text Layout
Enhanced Drawing API
Visual Performance Improvements
Enhanced Sound APIs
More information can be found at the link posted above.
The Flash 10 plugin is available both as a gzipped tarball and as an RPM.
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