Ben Kevan’s Blog

openSUSE 11.1 YaST preview - What’s the next step?

With the latest builds of YaST, I would have to say it is far from “Yet another Setup Tool”. I consider it “The ultimate Setup Tool”. That’s right, I think YaST which ships with openSUSE is the most complete, and comprehensive configuration / management tool. Furthermore in openSUSE 11.1 YaST is being shipped with many enhancemnts in the printer, software repositories, partitioner and more.

In this writing I’ll just show you some screenshots of the newly redesigned yast module gui’s. However later I will show more detail on how to use several of them including the newly revamped printer, partitioner one etc.

So lets start off with the printer module.

Software Repository module

Partitioner module

So there you have some quick previews of the revamped modules. Now.. onto the real wonder.. that being “What’s Next?”.

I think YaST as a standard setup tool across multiple distributions would be the “right step” for the normal home user. To put it in Windows terms, it’s like Control Panel on crack. Zonker talks about splitting YaST from openSUSE for it to be forked to other distributions in this posting of his.

Sorry this isn’t a more in depth review of the individual modules, like I said earlier, that’ll come later (as long as time permits).

So here’s a poll.. just wondering if you think YaST should be ported or not:

 Loading ...

Tags: opensuse, review, yast

Remembering and using the forgotten screen for remote administration

A co-worker was overlooking my shoulder today while I was working (blasted.. I hate that) and he saw me going through several screens in one shell window and was wondering how I was doing it.

I told him I was just using screen. *silence* … yeah screen..

After another moment of awkward silence, I realize that most people have forgotten about screen. Why use screen when you can just have tons of shells? Why run screen if I can just use that cool 3D compiz thing and put them on different desktops.

Well kids.. (my birthday was on the 4th.. I turned an ancient 27 years old.. so I can address others as kids now), screen has many other functions then just letting me run something in a different window. Have you ever had to ssh to a server, do some functions.. then realized it’s time to hit the bar with your buddies? Well then, screen would have been your friend there. Instead of telling your friends “Hey, I gotta sit here at work and finish something up, because I can’t log off and break this”, you could say “Hey, wait up a minute, let me start this and packup and leave.” How you may wonder. Easy, with screen, here’s how:

ssh to the server needing something done (lets just say a zypper update for the simplicity of this).

Now type:

screen -S zypper

This will bring you to a new prompt.
Now type:

sudo zypper up -y

This will update all our packages saying yes to them
Now just press:

ctrl+a then d

You’ll see something that says [detached] and you’ll be thrown to your original prompt.

Now you could log off (log off you say.. you’re nuts.. I’m updating).. Well your screen session is detached and still running, you can log off and it will still be running.

So now you’re done with your binge drinking, sobered up (I do not recommend working on production servers drunk as a skunk) enough the next morning to log back onto the server and check it out. So you ssh back to the server, and you’re at your prompt… but now what?

Now you can list your sessions with:

screen -ls

(Note: or screen -list)
Now you’ll see something like so:

There is a screen on:
11679.zypper (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/uscreens/S-bkevan.

Awesome.. so it is still there (did you think I was lying to you?). But how do I get it back?

Simple, you just have to reattach. You can reattach by doing a:

screen -r zypper

(Note: I used zypper since that’s what I named it when I ran screen -S (-S allows you to name the session)).
(Note: You can also recover the screen using the PID at the beginning of the line from the screen -list output.. in this case 11679).

Once you reattach to the screen session you’ll see that it’s done and that you were still able to have a fun night with your friends.

Also note there are many more other functions of screen and I highly recommend checking them out with:
man screen

If you want to know more about it.. leave a comment, throw me an email.. do what ever.. just let me know.

Tags: administration, opensuse, screen, tutorial

How to Mount an ISO Images in Linux (openSUSE)

I’m sure by now everyone has heard of an ISO image. But some may not know that with Linux you can mount it quite easily without burning the image to a CD.

This is actually made possible by an option of the mount command, if you haven’t used the mount command simply type:

man mount

To find out some of its uses (please spare the obvious jokes from that command).

The option of mount that allows us to mount an iso is the loop option. Loop will actually create a device in /dev/loopX for the mounted iso.

I’ll stop the blabbering and give you the command to mount an iso image using the mount command:

sudo mount -o loop -t iso9660 /location/of/filename.iso /mnt/iso

For the above command to work, I would have to have a directory in /mnt called iso, which can be made by running

sudo mkdir /mnt/iso

.

I think my next set of writings will be around the usage of RPM.. Or maybe just make a single comprehensive RPM usage list.

Tags: linux, tutorial

Script for disabling users (follow up for creating user)

Just to follow up on my Blog posting of the creating users script, I give you my script for disabling users (disabling etc may come to follow).. So without further a-do, here we go:

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
PGM=`basename $0`

if [ $(id -u) -eq 0 ]; then

# Logging information
DATESTAMP=`date +%Y%m%d`
TIMESTAMP=`date +%H%M%S`
LOGDIR=/var/log/$PGM

# Find out who I am
ME=`whoami`

while [ $# -ge 1 ] ; do
case $1 in
-h*)
echo “Use: $PGM account”
exit
;;
-*) die “$PGM: unknown option \”$1\”" ;;
*) USER_TO_DIS=$1 ;;
esac
shift
done

# If no user is defined we have to get one
while [ "$USER_TO_DIS" = "" ] ; do
echo -n “Who do you want to disable? “
read USER_TO_DIS || die “” 0
done

# check to be sure that the person has an account on the local machine
egrep -s “^${USER_TO_DIS}:” /etc/passwd >/dev/null
case $? in
0)
echo “Disabling from password file”

lockit passwd.lock

egrep -v “^${USER_TO_DIS}:” /tmp/passwd.tmp
egrep “^${USER_TO_DIS}:” /etc/passwd | \
awk -F: ‘{print $1 “:*DISABLED*:” $3 “:” $4 “:” $5 “:” $6 “:” $7}’ >>/tmp/passwd.tmp

ed /tmp/passwd.tmp < s/^${USER_TO_DIS}:/X${USER_TO_DIS}:/p
w
q
EOF

cmp /etc/passwd /tmp/passwd.tmp >/dev/null
case $? in
0) rm /tmp/passwd.tmp ;;
*)
mv /tmp/passwd.tmp /etc/passwd
;;
esac
chmod a-w /etc/passwd
chmod a+r /etc/passwd
unlockit passwd.lock
;;
1)
echo “$PGM: $USER_TO_DIS Does not have an account on $HOST”
;;
esac

egrep -s “[:,]${USER_TO_DIS}$|[:,]${USER_TO_DIS},” /etc/group >/dev/null
case $? in
0)
echo “Disabling from group file”

lockit group.lock

sed -e “s/\([:,]\)${USER_TO_DIS},/\1X${USER_TO_DIS},/” \
-e “s/\([:,]\)${USER_TO_DIS}$/\1X${USER_TO_DIS}/” \
/tmp/group.tmp

cmp /etc/group /tmp/group.tmp >/dev/null
case $? in
0) rm /tmp/group.tmp ;;
*)
mv /tmp/group.tmp /etc/group
#/etc/dist/bin/mail-group
;;
esac
chmod a-w /etc/group
chmod a+r /etc/group
unlockit group.lock
;;
1)
echo “$PGM: $USER_TO_DIS Does not have a group entry on $HOST”
;;
esac

# remove any left over mail spool file
rm -f /var/mail/${USER_TO_DIS}

# insure log directory exists
test -d $LOGDIR || mkdir -p $LOGDIR
LOGFILE=$LOGDIR/$DATESTAMP

# log what we do
echo “$TIMESTAMP-$ME $USER_TO_DIS” >>$LOGFILE

exit
else
echo “Only root may run $PGM”
exit 2
fi

Please any feedback is quite helpful, and any input to make the script better is obviously welcomed. Later I’ll post up some stuff for quarterly changes, enabling disabled users, and a few other things I’ve been putting together lately. Hope this series will be helpful.

Tags: linux, programing, scripts, user management

Speed up your Linux Boot and normal use ( openSUSE )

In a world where faster (in most sense) is better, people are always looking for ways to increase the efficency of their computers. While i’ve read other peoples thoughts and recommendations regarding speeding up your linux installation, many I just clearly do not agree with. Here are things I have done, and things I could/would have done if I was on less adept hardware:

First: I want to get out that clearing the terminals launch at boot via /etc/inittab will not help as much as many guides try to say. This uses just a very minute amount of RAM, and you’ll rarely see a difference. However if you do feel you want to chage this, you can disable (comment out) the following lines in /etc/inittab:

3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

I recommend not removing any more then those. Again, this will give you minute gains in RAM usage.

Second: A great practice on any operating system (Microsoft and Linux alike) is to disable un-needed processes. This can be done quite easilly via YaST. To do this open YaST, click on System and click on System Services (Runlevel) see Figure 1. (note if you do not see this run the following to install it:)

sudo zypper in yast2-runlevel

Figure 1

Things I have disabled are:
joystick (I do not run any joystick etc)
nfs (I don’t attach to any NFS mount points)
ntp (I don’t care to attach to any NTP source)
(Note: I won’t tell you which ones TO disable as it is up to you to determine WHICH services are not needed, be sure you know what you are doing here.

Note: In Ubuntu the application that will do this for you is sysv-rc-conf. You can install it via:

sudo aptitude install sysv-rc-conf

Third: Is a great and simple way to increase the effectiveness of the RAM on your machine. This modification will allow more of your process to be stored into memory and not be sent to your swap (RAM is faster then Disk).
Note: This modification is for the machines with quite a bit of extra RAM to hand out and not for systems that lack usable RAM.

First you can check what your current swappiness level is (the higher the swappiness setting, the more often it will write to your swap (again which is located on disk). You can do this by running:

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

I believe openSUSE ships by default at 60, but most distributions ship with swappiness set to 50 - 60.

Now to test this setting before making it permenant. You can run:

sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=0

If you feel the performance gains, are good, or you just feel like setting it permenantly you must modify /etc/sysctl.conf. To do this edit the file in your favorite editor:

gnomesu gedit /etc/sysctl.conf
kdesu kwrite /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf

Add the following line to the end of /etc/sysctl.conf:

vm.swappiness = 5

(Note: You can choose your value, the lower the value the less swapping that will take place).

Fourth: Disable IPv6 if you will not be using it. I won’t go too far into this, you can do this in YaST –> Network Devices –> Network Settings.

Fifth: Tune your applications.
OpenOffice.org Will allow you to change it’s memory consumption. You can do this by opening any OpenOffice.org application, then going to Tools –> Options –> OpenOffice.org –>> Memory. You can play around with this setting for your need, but changing the number of graphics in cache, and increasing the amount per object may be quite useful.

Compiz Most people consider this to be a great “eye candy tool”. I honestly consider it a functionality and productivity tool and use it for this function day by day. If you NEED to run it, make sure you trim what plugins load, and just slim it down to the functional features you use. If you don’t need Compiz just disable the desktop effects. This will free up a good amount of resources.

Sixth: Replace bulky applications:
Firefox I actually didn’t want to touch on this because FireFox 3.1 looks like it will actually lower the memory consumption by Firefox, but with that said, 3.1 is in Alpha (or pre-Alpha so I have to mention this). Use Opera, which can be install via:

sudo zypper in opera

.
Opera is a full feature browser, and uses quite a bit less memory and overall resources then firefox does. If you’re running KDE you also have the choice of Konqueror, but again I would highly recommend Opera if you’re low on resources, or looking to conserve.
OpenOffice.org You have many other word processors avaliable to you in Linux. If you just need a basic editor use gedit, kwrite, or if you need a more feature full processor and can’t afford the hit from openoffice use obiword, or koffice.

Change your Desktop Environment. Most people will run GNOME or KDE. Those are some of the higher resource intense DE’s and on a machine where resources are really in need can be replaced with lightweight DE’s like XFCE (blackbox, enlightenment, icewm (note: these ones are for more advanced users)). XFCE can easily be installed via YaST. To do this open YaST –> Software –> Software Management. Under Filter choose Patterns and check the XFCE Desktop Environment option.
(Personal Experience: I find that KDE uses fewer resources then GNOME, and find it’s functionality to be even greater. This is one reason I have chosen openSUSE over Ubuntu. Sure, you can install Kubuntu or KDE packages within Ubuntu, but it is not developed upon like it is on openSUSE).

Those are the basic things that can be done to help speed up your machine for daily use, and to speed up your boot process.

Now onto some other things that I’ve done on my machine just from personal experiences:
Run

ps -ef | more

Check what is running that I don’t really need. Kill the process. After i’ve killed the processes I don’t care for I save my session ( I do this because I have my KDE set to start on the last manually saved session ).

Another modification I’ve added to try to increase performance with EXT3 is adding

noatime,nodiratime

in my /etc/fstab mount point for my /home.
This is how the line looks in fstab:

/dev/system/home /home ext3 acl,user_xattr,noatime,nodiratime 1 2

Install a Vanilla Kernel. This will remove all the patches installed by the SUSE developers, but will increase your boot time by about 10 - 15% (dropped my boot time by about 8 seconds). This is for advanced users, if enough people as for this, maybe i’ll blog about it.

I also removed that damned dog Beagle, and the security feature apparmor. I removed beagle because most my files are kept on a offline disk, and again this is one of the main reasons I removed apparmor.

I’m sure i’ve done other things, and I just can’t remember right now. I’ve just pulled these off the top of my head and can’t really think of anything as it is bed time.

Shameless plug: You can read a previous posting of mine which will allow you to check your before and after boot times. Check out the posting here for that.

Hope this helps someone and please feel free to add your comments to make this a better comprhensive list.

Tags: opensuse, performance, ubuntu

Switching from Windows to Linux, what you need to know

Switching from Windows to Linux and what you need to know:

Since we are in touch economic times the most important question is “How much will this cost me”? The answer is nothing, zero, zilch or nada. Whatever phrase you want to use (unless you’re really a stickler and want to divide your monthly Internet bandwidth cost against the time it took you to download the application and (well, you get the point). Hell, I would go on the edge and say it may actually save you money. How? You’ll be in touch with your computer, you’ll be excited to learn do stuff on it again, you’ll be heading the charge with changing the way a Corporate giant in Microsoft does it’s daily business, you’ll be FREE. (Man.. too much braveheart lately).

What is linux?
In the past years the phrase Linux has been mis-represented as a full blown distribution and not it’s original meaning. Linux, actually derived from the “Linux Kernel”, which was originally written by Linus Torvald in the early 90’s. So it is important to not refer a distribution as Linux, but as a Linux Distribution.

What is a distribution (distro)?
A distribution such as openSUSE (SUSE), Ubuntu, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, and Mandriva are all contain the basic Linux Kernel, and a bundle of applications which would provide your X support (GUI, Graphic User Interface), your Desktop Environment (Gnome / KDE / XFCE etc), and all your other basic and advanced functions. The major differences between distributions is their packages of choice (.deb (Debian, .rpm (RedHat package manager)), what packages come included with the distribution, and their management interfaces. The confusion of the many distributions may be one of the factors that turn people off of Linux, as they view it as “too confusing”.

What distribution is best?
This would be impossible for me to get up and say “Here is the best distribution for everyone”. Ever distribution has their good and their bad points, and each distribution does something better then the other. I personally use openSUSE, which is supported by Novell. I originally converted from Fedora Core (around the 4 days) to SuSE because the robustness of the distribution, and the choices it has always given. With that said, other popular distributions are Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Gentoo, Linux Mint, PCLinuxOS, and for historical reasons Slackware (one of the original distributions).

Can I still run my .exe programs?
The quick answer is no, but the more in-depth answer would be yes. Out of the box, the Linux Operating System does not allow you to run .exe binaries (which are Windows Binaries). However, there is a project called Wine (which Google has been great at helping advance) which allows us to install some Windows Applications and run some of these binaries. However, support for everything is not in place, and would be a per application basis.

What is a Desktop Environment?
I touched earlier in “What is a distribution” about Desktop Environments (typically referred to as DE). A DE is a an environment which consists of what most consider their “Desktop” and is comparable to what we see when we log onto a Windows workstation / server. These DE’s consist of our icons, wallpapers, folders, windows, taskbars etc. This is our functional GUI which runs off of the X system. The chosen DE is another thing that may separate one distribution from another.

What is the best Desktop Environment?
Much like Distributions. This is a hot topic especially between the 2 major DE’s Gnome and KDE. Another major player in the DE environment is XFCE, and a up and comer is called Enlightenment. The only thing I am going to say about these to not spark any type of debate is to try them all yourself to see which fits your need best. I personally find KDE 3.5.10 to be the sweet spot for me. KDE 3.5.10 is being replaced by KDE 4.X, but for my uses (every day production use at work) I find that KDE4 has not yet filled all the features in KDE 3.5 that I use. GNOME however is very popular in the enterprise work force, as it’s very easy to navigate (although I find KDE to be a friendly swap for you Windows users reading this).

Ok, now that you know what the Linux Kernel, Linux Distributions, and Desktop Environments are we’ll get down to the part where we replace Windows with Linux.

Here are some general uses for Windows users in the home space. After this we will go into what
you’re used to in each version of Windows, and try to compare it to Linux.

General uses:
Web Browsing: Some Windows applications for this task are: Internet Explorer, and Firefox comparable Linux applications that can do these tasks are Firefox (look familiar?), Opera (many more). For most home users, we use our computer as a way to browse the World Wide Web. A computer running a Linux OS, would be the perfect replacement, if this is your main need. Why you may wonder? Because a computer running a Linux OS is less susceptible to getting Malware / Viruses / Spam / Popups. This helps save the data on your machine, the personal data you type in at a web site, and in many other ways. I could write a million reasons here, but if you use your computer for only the internet, you should highly consider trying Linux, to save you heartaches with Viruses, etc in the future.

Word processing: Some Windows applications for this task are: Works, Word and openoffice, the major comparable Linux application is openoffice (again notice a trend? What is on Windows, may already be on Linux). If you run openoffice on Windows, a switch to Linux would a simple. You’re not doing anything different and using the same applications? So why the hesitation?

Spreadsheets: Some Windows applications for this task are: Works, Excel and openoffice, the major comparable Linux application is openoffice (again notice a trend? What is on Windows, may already be on Linux). See Word processing.

Email: You are just doing mail via the web (ie Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail etc) then this does not actually refer to you, as that is considered “Web browsing”, and you should re-read the security implications I’ve mentions in Web browsing. If you use a client like outlook, you have 2 major replacements in Kmail (which ships with KDE), and Evolution (which ships with GNOME). If you are pulling from a Exchange Server, I would recommend Evolution (which could actually run on KDE (gotta love the flexability of Linux).

Multimedia: Some applications for these tasks are: iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. The applications that would replace these in Linux are actually way better then both the applications mentioned for Windows. These applications are Amarok, Mplayer and VLC. I won’t get into the gists of why they are better, just know that they are in every way. Note with Mplayer and VLC, you can run nearly any format including formats that are for “Windows (yes, some video formats are actually Windows only). Also for DVD playback you can install libdvdcss (which is kind of a touch subject due to it’s legality in the US, I recommend checking it out, and fighting for the cause).

Ok.. off the high horse now, and on to migrating from Windows to Linux and what you can expect.

The Windows Vista user:
So there you are, with your new Windows Vista box, super excited because you now have something called Aero. You’ve been awiting years (about 5) to come out with something other then Windows XP, and now you got it an annoying thing that pops up every time you want to do something (User Access Control/UAC), and a kick ass way to switch between applications. You’re living in a euphoric stage until you find out that Linux did that before Vista was out, and can do about 90 even cooler functions. This is courtesy of Compiz/Comiz-Fusion. If you’ve seen someone with a modern Linux distribution, then you’ve undoubtedly been awed by their 3-D Desktop, and the different methods of seeing what applications are open. So you wonder, how can I get that? Easily, just install a new version of a major distribution. Yes, most major distributions ship with Compiz enabled by default. That means these awesome features right out of the box. You can enable them, and disable them by running their configuration manager (won’t get into detail here, but there is plenty out there to get you started). Now that I’ve broken your heart, and kicked you while you waited 5 years for the new version of Windows, I’ll let you know what to expect when you switch from the most prevalent Windows Operating System out there, Windows XP. (Vista users should also read the XP section).

The Windows XP user:
When you hear Linux many of you off the bat thing “It’s better, it’s this, it’s that”. I do agree with you on that front, but it is not without a learning curve, or without a possible headache or 2. Do you remember all the major headaches while learning Windows for the first time? All the crashes etc? Think of those headaches minimized by 85%. If you’re then willing to take the adventure, and going in with the mind set that there will be a learning curve, that may introduce some headaches, then please read on.

When you install, you’ll notice that the installation is very straight forward, very manager based and just as easy if not easier then a Windows XP installation. Once installed, and logged in you’ll notice that you won’t have to install tons of different applications (ie Office etc) as most packages ship with the distribution. You may or may not see an increase of speed (if you have a 3 / 5 year old installation of Windows XP then heck yeah, you’ll notice a speed increase). If you are a basic user, here you’ll notice no difference, other then the lack of Administrative privileges. These are not given to users, as it introduces un-needed security risks (we’re all just used to running as “Administrators” in Windows). To run something with elevated privileges we use sudo, but again this will only need to be done with certain administrative tasks, and most needs will prompt you for your or your root (or administrator in windows) password.

That’s it.. If you’re a regular user, that is all you’ll notice (if you even notice that). As a power user, or someone that like to tinker, you’ll notice that there is no registry, you’ll also notice you have the ability to modify a lot more, and have the freedom to do anything to your machine (include break it, which you power users will probably do while you’re in your “learning phase”, with power comes problems for us curious ones).

Sorry this is all over the place, I hope someone finds it useful, feel free to leave me a comment, and i’ll add to it. Thanks a ton.

Great external links:
openSUSE
Ubuntu
Mandriva
KDE
Gnome
openoffice

Here’s a great list of comparisons between Linux and Windows also (man, if I knew this existed before hand, I would have just linked this instead of writing everything out).
Wikipedia Comparison of Windows

Tags: linux, Microsoft, opensuse, ubuntu

openSUSE 11 the perfect Ubuntu replacement (openSUSE vs Ubuntu)

With the release of openSUSE 11.0 right around the corner, you will see plenty of reviews, how-to’s and other various things about openSUSE, but how does it stack up against other distributions mainly Ubuntu/(K)Ubuntu?

I see openSUSE as being the perfect replacement for the users that have gotten their feet wet in linux with Ubuntu along side with those just looking to get their feet wet.

You may ask why, instead let me give you some comparisons that I think are important for the new user, or someone just looking at openSUSE 11.0 vs Ubuntu 8.04 (or openSUSE vs Ubuntu in general)

Installation:
Many people talk about the ease of installation with Ubuntu, but what you don’t hear is that “ease” of installation also removes to options of choice during installation. With the Ubuntu family your choice of Desktop Environments means the installation of a whole different distribuntion (ie. Kubuntu) or installing the wanted desktop environment AFTER you installed the default one. This reminds me much of the Windows Installers. A new user may never be exposed to KDE, may not even understand what a desktop environment is. Some may argue that “they don’t need to” but does that mean we should take away their choice of picking what is put on the system originally?

OpenSUSE gives you this choice during the installation, it also gives you the choice to use a seperate Live DVD installer much like the Ubuntu installer, bug again with choices. Not only do you get this choice from a single DVD, but you also get the choice to add / remove programs during the installation which is important to me, since I like to trim down my installation prior to it being installed. With that said, this does not mean the openSUSE 11.0 installer is complicated. Not only is it NOT complicated, but to me it is simpler the Ubuntu, Fedora, Mac OS and Windows installer. Again, not only is it easier, it looks a whole lot better then any other installer with its new QT4 Installer which is shown below.

Advantage:
New User: Ubuntu
User with experience (even minimal): openSUSE
(Note: Because openSUSE has the Choices, but Ubuntu has the precieved ease of installation)

The boot process:
When you start up your boxes you will immediatly see that openSUSE has more attention to detail when it comes to looks. The GRUB and Splash screens look much better. However, the major part of the boot process is the boot time. In openSUSE 10 - 10.2 I would have easily said this was a huge advantage for Ubuntu, but with openSUSE 11.0 the gap has been shrunk. However with the loading of apparmor and some other suse additions, Ubuntu is still just a hair faster (maybe this will change in openSUSE 11.1)
Advantage:
Speed: Ubuntu
Looks: openSUSE

Themes:
The first thing you see when you turn on your machine is the default theme shipped with your distributions desktop environment. Although Ubuntu has made their default nicer (not the very bland ugly brown) openSUSE is still more vibrant and eye catching. I also believe the openSUSE Menu’s are much better.
Advantage:
openSUSE

Installation of Restricted Formats:
Although openSUSE now has 1-Click Installation, it is not straight forward when you log into your package manager. This is something that Ubuntu has done very well. Ubuntu allows you to open it’s package manager and install the restricted formats package and will install everything that you need for playing your mp3’s, avi’s etc. (Note: openSUSE ships by default WITH MP3 support).
Advantage:
Ubuntu

System Management:
For those new to openSUSE you can find almost everything within one convenient location called YaST. YaST is short for Yet another Simple Tool and it is just that, a simple easy way to change your configuration for almost everything with your system. Here is a quick snippit of what YaST looks likes, and the possible options you have.

YaST in KDE 3.5:

YaST in GNOME:

Ubuntu has some great GUI based configuration tools under the system menu, but with YaST they are compiled in a single location, and some of the YaST modules are much better then their counterparts (ie. SaX for Video Card / Resolution configuration)

Advantage:
openSUSE

Package Management:
Previously Ubuntu beat the hell out of openSUSE in this regard, but with the progression of zypper this gap is closing fast, and Ubuntu may be passed up shortly. Zypper is faster, leaner and smarter then most other package management tools, but I do not yet see YaST Software Manager pulling ahead of the Ubuntu Package Management counterparts “YET”. This may very well change with openSUSE 11.1. Just to note, this is a VERY VERY slim win for Ubuntu, as both are great functionally sound, just some rough edges need to be straightened out within the Software Manager
Advantage:
Ubuntu

Security:
AppArmor. Enough said. (AppArmor is the openSUSE / Novell version of SELinux). Ubuntu has nothing on top of the Linux OS for further security.
Advantage:
openSUSE (Long shot)

Stability:
They are both Linux OS’s, they are both sound mature products, they are both extremly stable. You can’t knock either in this category.
Advantage:
Tie

The community:
Ubuntu currently has the biggest following of users and has the best structured “free support” using forums and wiki. However many distributions including openSUSE have seen this format and are fixing their way of doing things. openSUSE has recently launched forums.opensuse.org, and they have a pretty comprehensive wiki and a very informational mailing list. I think it may be a while before the SUSE forums gets the content that the Ubuntu one has, but it’ll be a great day when it does.
Advantage:
Ubuntu

Conclusion:
Ubuntu and openSUSE are both very mature and solid Desktop Operating systems. However, I give the overall advantage to openSUSE because it’s continued attention to detail and rapid development. I believe the ONLY shortfall that openSUSE has against Ubuntu is the very small gap in the Package Management spot. Once this void is closed, the rest will follow feat. OpenSUSE is more polished, more refined and gives you the choices you deserve during installation.

Now you should head over to opensuse.org and download your copy of openSUSE 11.0. Install it and enjoy the openSUSE Bliss.

You can also check out some of my previous blogs that will help you learn not only how openSUSE works, but how you can make it work better and keep it updated. Here are some related blogs I would recommend:

Things to do after installing openSUSE 11.0
Useful openSUSE 11.0 repositories for the best SUSE experience

Installing NVIDIA Drivers on openSUSE 11.0 & other Linux Distrubutions

You listened to many Graphics Card critics and went with an NVIDIA card for your Linux box. But just slapping the card in your machine or installing openSUSE 11.0 will not get you to fully utilize your card. Why? By default most distributions will setup your card using the nv driver which is included in the Xorg installation. So we need to download and install the nvidia driver from nvidia.com.

Now onto my installation. I downloaded the 173.08 Beta version (as I had some issues with the 173.14.05 driver (and when I did get it working it didn’t benchmark to the level the 173 driver did), so I am going to stay with the beta driver for now.

Download the appropriate driver x86 or x64

Switch to runlevel 3 (or init 3) you can do this by running init 3 as root.

Log into runlevel 3 and install the driver
sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-173.08-pkg1.run

Follow the onscreen instructions (really straight forward) and when done switch back to runlevel 5 by running init 5 as root.

Note: You will need the build packages. (ie gcc, kernel-source etc).

This works just fine across distributions like Fedora Core 9, Ubuntu, etc.

UPDATE: There is now a repository you can add for the NVIDIA Drivers. You can setup the repo by running:

sudo zypper ar ftp://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/11.0/ “Nvidia Driver”

Go into YaST –> Software Manager and install the driver that matches your running Kernel.

Tags: drivers, linux, nvidia, opensuse

Password protecting website without using .htaccess

Do you host your own website and since you have control of the /etc/apache2/conf.d directory you would rather not enable .htaccess usage?

Now you wonder how do I password protect a directory without having a .htaccess file in the directory. You actually use the same options etc you would use in a .htaccess.  So here is a sample configuration file which requires authentication for the directory /var/www/stats

Here is the location of the file below:
/etc/apache2/conf.d

<Directory /var/www/stats>
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Statistic Tracker”
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/htpasswd.setup
Require valid-user
</Directory>

To create the required htpasswd file (with the name above) do:
sudo htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/htpasswd.setup username

Now you will have to reset apache:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

I will be adding this to my Wiki later

Tags: apache, linux, opensuse, tech, ubuntu

VMWare Workstation not working with Wireless (Kernel 2.6.20)

So you may be using VMWare Workstation on a nice shiny Linux box, just to find out you cannot use your Bridged networking over the Wireless Card, confining you to the sofa nearest to your Router sitting in an obscure place. So what do you do? You fix it of course.

How?

Download this patched version of vmnet.tar created by Hauke-m from the VMWare Forums and Funderburg over at linuxquestions.org.

New vmnet.tar

Replace your current vmnet.tar file (mine is located in /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar) and re-run your vmare-config.pl (for me sudo /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl)

Your all set FINALLY..

Hopefully VMWare will fix it on their releases

openSUSE 10.3 coming to a computer near you

So i’ve been dabbling quite a bit with Ubuntu Gusty Gibbon (7.10)  (Tribe 1 - Beta 1) and as always openSUSE 10.3 (Alpha - RC1). I must say it’s good to see other distributions put things in that openSUSE has had for years, but with that said, I guess i’ll just touch on some of my basic likes and dislikes.

One thing I just dispise about Ubuntu, is Gnome. Sure, there is Kubuntu, but come-on people, I would imagine by now you’d realize Kubuntu really isn’t Ubuntu with KDE. Glad to see Ubuntu FINALLY has a GUI to configure Xorg (saX has been around for a LONG time in the suse distro). The other added features of Ubuntu are cool, other then some small configuration things that should have been in the distro along time ago, nothing is much different then 7.04.

openSUSE 10.3 on the other hand, is leaps and BOUNDS above what 10.2 provided. Most notabily is the decrease in boot and shutdown speeds.  Currently on my production box I run openSUSE 10.3 and will be upgrading to 10.3 on the day it’s released (may do a clean install and remove my Windows partition, and continue to just use Windows in a VM, where it belongs). On my MythTV box, I currently run Ubuntu 7.04 but may be migrating over to openSUSE 10.3 also, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t going to check out MythBuntu.

Sorry this is all over the place, and kind of short, but little guy was a bit fussy and going to go tend to him now. Stay tuned for a kick ass openSUSE 10.3 MythTV How-to

Linux, Apache, MySQL & PHP on openSuSE 10.2, Kubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu 7.04 & Fedora Core 7

So today I decided to give a few linux distro’s a shot in setting up a LAMP server (LAMP is Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). The distro’s I went withwere: openSuSE 10.2 (my default), Kubuntu 7.04 (decided this on top of Ubuntu since some things are different as much as people want to say they are the same thing), Ubuntu 7.04 and for yucks, Fedora Core 7).

The first distribution up for the works was openSUSE 10.2. The installation was done during the installation and to my suprise everything was great right when I booted up, although I had to enable apache2 and mysql in the RunLevel Services to start in both Run Level 3 and 5. Once this was done, I tested PHP and Apache and both worked fine without any configuration changes. I logged into MySQL and changed the root password, and then decided to install phpMyAdmin from YaST and tried to log on and got “Access Denied”, well it seems that when installed on SuSE that it wants to login with root with no password. So I logged back into mysql and changed the password (Just in case you wanted to know the commands they were:

mysql -u root
mysql> USE mysql;
mysql> UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD(’assign_new_password’) WHERE user=’root’;
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

If you change the root password on the openSuSe and need to change it back login to the DB with:

mysql -u root -p mysql

I did the same on all distros)

Ok, was all done with that one. Now it was for Kubuntu / Ubuntu:

As expected the Kubuntu / Ubuntu installations had to be done after the installation of the OS with apt-get. This was kind of a bummer since I kind of like doing it during the installation of the OS packages, but this is one of the downfalls of the single CD installation. Once installed all went as planned and testing fine. So I install phpmyadmin, and login with the mysql root account that I had setup. All went well, I was pleased and moved on pretty quickly.

Fedora Core 7 I was able to install during the installation and tested good. One thing I didn’t like at all, was my user wasn’t added to the sudoers file and I think that is REDICULOUS. But with all that said, it all went well, and phpmyadmin was tested without issues, this was quick painless and Fedora Core 7 looks alot better then the last Fedora distro I used which was FC4.

I would honestly have to say from all the installs Fedora Core 7 was the easiest for a LAMP server, since it was installable from the beginning and did not need any configuration post installation like openSuSE needed. If Ubuntu / Kubuntu ever decided to make a DVD install, and included the install during boot, it would have been marked as the best during my test.

openSuSE 10.2 is still my desired distro, but if Ubuntu 7.10 outshines openSuSE 10.3 I may have to switch, hopefully Novell and get their heads together and fix their package manager and zen updater.