Ben Kevan’s Blog

Dropping KDE 3.5 for openSUSE 11.2 isn’t really a bad thing

In some previous writings of mine, I kept harping on the dismissal of KDE 3.5 in the next release of openSUSE, openSUSE 11.2 (which will probably be due out in Q3 / Q4 of 2009). However, one thing I’ve always neglected to do was look at the bright side of the drop of main stream support for KDE 3.5.

First, I have to give much props to the openSUSE KDE maintainers for keeping KDE 3.5.10 in openSUSE 11.1 while most other community distributions are dropping KDE 3 from their builds all together. With this move, openSUSE (supported by Novell) will maintain KDE 3.5 for at least 2 years (major bug / security fixes) while openSUSE 11.1 is still under support.

With all that said, there is still a possibility that KDE 3.5 can be installed on openSUSE 11.2 by a community maintained KDE 3 repository. Although no details for this have surfaced it’s still a possibility.

So here are some of the reasons I don’t think that dropping KDE 3 from openSUSE 11.2 is really a bad thing.

The openSUSE KDE team is quite a small team of people. Many people may not realize that Novell only has 4 full time people on KDE. First I would like to thank the team of 5, and thank them. Those persons are:
Stephan Binner
Luboš Luňák
Dirk Mueller
Will Stephenson

Can you imagine the time spent on maintaining KDE 3.5? Now imagine that time being used to instead increase the usability of KDE 4. To go through the “enhancements” that people request, or to just mature the overall status of Plasma. With all that extra time to spend on KDE 4, I have NO DOUBT that the version of KDE 4 that will ship with openSUSE 11.2 will be a full suitable replacement for KDE 3. I am so confident that it will be a great replacement that I will without a doubt switch from KDE 3 to KDE 4 at that release, and will do so on my production machine.

I know many people with KDE 4 a bad wrap (previously I did the same), but I am now challanging those same people to HELP the development of KDE 4, by actually running it and filing a bug report at http://bugzilla.novell.com for any bugs found, and also to file any “enhancements” for features that you believe are missing that were previously in KDE 3.

So again lets give thanks to all openSUSE KDE contributors and suppor their move to the future.

To top it off, here are some screenshots of openSUSE 11.1 running KDE 4 thanks to en.opensuse.org

Tags: kde, kde4, opensuse

5 Days on openSUSE 11.1 was an early X-Mas present

I have been quite busy with a major project with work and that’s kept me from being able to write as much about openSUSE 11.1 as I have about previous versions. The lack of content from me in no way be taken as a dissapointment because my 5 day report on openSUSE 11.1 is pretty good.

So here’s a quick configuration:
Main Usage: Everyday enterprise use
Computer: Dell Latitude D820
Operating System: openSUSE 11.1
Desktop Environment: KDE 3.5.10
Display Driver: NVIDIA Beta 180.16

Here’s my screenshot:

First, I must point out that openSUSE 11.1 can be downloaded from the following locations:
DVD-32bit - openSUSE Linux 11.1 DVD - 32bit
DVD-64bit - openSUSE Linux 11.1 DVD - 64bit
openSUSE Gnome Live CD - 32 bit
openSUSE Gnome Live CD - 64 bit
openSUSE KDE 4 Live CD - 32 bit
openSUSE KDE 4 Live CD - 64 bit

Here are some major package version changes from openSUSE 11.0:
- Kernel 2.6.27.7
- KDE 4.1.3 & 3.5.10
- GNOME 2.24
- Mono 2.0

Now to my 5 days of openSUSE 11.1. First, after I installed I had to convert to the Compiz packages without the NOMAD patch (which was pretty much a known issue) and I was fully up and running without a hitch. First things I notice is the speed increase in boot (I’ll provide a bootchart diagram later to find out where that increase actually came from) and the speed improvements seen in zypper.

Again, I use this machine every day in an enterprise environment. Applications I run daily are:

Lotus Notes 8.5 Beta 2
VMware Workstation 6.5.x
Kontact
Opera
Yakuke
Amarok
Pidgin

All applications ran seemlessly. This was by far the simpliest upgrade I’ve had with any linux distribution and expect openSUSE 11.2 to be even easier.

On another note I played around with openSUSE 11.1 in a VM running KDE 4.1.3 and was astonished on how much further it was compared to the build of KDE that shipped with openSUSE 11.0. Now my only hope is that openSUSE 11.2 is on a 9 month release cycle and is released with KDE 4.3 which is due out at the end of June.

I’m hoping to have some time to write more about openSUSE 11.1, but only time will tell. Maybe just a nice screenshot walkthrough of the installation of KDE 4 Live CD, Gnome Live CD and DVD based installation with KDE 3.5.10.

On another note I would like to know if anyone would be willing to help me write some content on my site. Any inquiries can be sent to ben.kevan/at/gmail[dot]com.

I ask for help because Novell in the past has been known to have marketing issues, and I’d like to make sure that openSUSE doesn’t have this issue since to me, it is the best Linux distribution out there.

Tags: 11.1, gnome, kde, opensuse, review

Amarok 2.0 Final Released - Shipping with openSUSE 11.1

As you may have heard today was a milestone day for the Amarok team, as their major port of Amarok for KDE3 to KDE4 has released it’s FINAL stage.

That’s right it’s been released.

Here’s some topics from amarok.kde.org

Completely redesigned user interface
Tight integration with online services such as Magnatune, Jamendo, MP3tunes, Last.fm and Shoutcast
Completely overhauled scripting API and plugin support to allow better integration into Amarok
Migration from the KDE 3 to KDE 4 framework, and utilization of core technologies such as Solid, Phonon, and Plasma

Most importantly Amarok 2.0 Final will be shipped with openSUSE 11.1 due out in just about a week.

Tags: amarok, kde, opensuse

Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 on openSUSE 11.1 - Review

I thought i’d give a quick review of Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 that I recently installed on my openSUSE 11.1 RC1 box.

First a little information from Opera’s website:

What’s new:
Updated engine
Opera Presto 2.2 is the newest rendering engine for the Opera browser. It provides significant improvements in speed, performance and security.
30% Faster on the real Web
We optimized the Opera Presto 2.2 engine to be much faster on resource intensive pages such as Gmail and Facebook.
Great-looking standards
With an Acid3 100/100 score, Web Fonts support, RGBA/HSLA color and SVG improvements, Opera 10 alpha is ready for the next generation of Web applications. Learn more

I went ahead and downloaded Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 from here. I then upgraded my 9.62 to 10.0 Alpha 1 by running sudo rpm -Uvh opera-10.00-4102.gcc4-shared-qt3.i386.rpm.

Now started the fun. I launched firefox, and opera and went and opened up my gmail account, and right away noticed the speed of the new opera blew away the previous version 9.62. The previous Opera 9.62 also blew away Firefox 3, so you can only imagine how much faster this test was for me. I then decided I would test out some flash pages (finance.google.com) and browsed some other sites that I visit often, and right away noticed the blazing speed that Opera 10.0 Alpha 1 gave me over the other browsers during every day normal browsing.

I originally switched to Opera a few years ago in the 8 family, and the recent 9.x experiences has solidified it to be my primary browser of choice. I have also started using it for other things like IRC chatting, and am currently testing the mail functions with my gmail account (currently I use Kmail).

Currently the only issues I have had with this Alpha build is a single crash on finance.google.com when I tried to press back before the flash portion of the page finished loading. And the theme I use hasn’t been ported so it looks a little different then it did in 9.62. But again nothing major in my hour of normal every day use testing.

Great job to all the Opera developers and really looking forward to the 10.0 release and am really looking forward to fully testing the mail features with gmail and hope to convert from Kmail to opera mail (I just have to test to see how the deleting of messages are handled. If they get moved to trash, or if the labels are just removed. I hope they get moved to the trash when deleted in IMAP (this is how dIMAP works for me in Kmail.).

Tags: opensuse, opera

Ding Dong the Emeralds Back Compiz

As some of you may have read from my blog earlier, I was complaining about the “loss” of emerald without notification to the user community. However, during the 11th hour it seems as though David Reveman really pulled through.

You can check out the following bug to see Davids remarks:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=431846

Which I’ll include here:

A compiz package fix that will allow emerald to work properly without any
changes has been submitted to X11:Compiz.
I also submitted a patch to the emerald package that will allow it to work with
remote desktops (nomad) or without the previously mentioned update to compiz.

If anyone has a working Compiz on 11.1 (from the installation source, or Factory) please test out emerald, and let me know if it is working for you. I have it working, but I am still using the packages in XGL, which do not include the NOMAD patch and wouldn’t be a correct representation since the NOMAD patch caused the emerald regression.

Many thanks to David R for taking the ball and running with it. Now we just have to find out if there will be a long term maintainer.

Tags: emerald, nomad, opensuse

11.1 Build Service Repositories being Built

Just thought I’d give a heads up to the people that care. The openSUSE 11.1 Build Service repositories are starting to come online.

With openSUSE 11.1 nipping at our heels.. I’d like to thank the openSUSE Developers for their great efforts in bringing out 11.1 ON schedule even with the delays due to the power outtage in the earlier builds.

Although I have beliefs that this release will not be as great as some of the others, I have overall faith in openSUSE. I just hope that some of the issues that i’ve seen with Compiz (mostly) and openOffice (cannot open documents over SMB) are fixed via updates that are released in the next few days PRIOR to the 13th GM release date.

I’ll keep my eye open for the ATI / NVIDIA repositories (actually I haven’t even checked if they were avaliable yet).

Hope everyone is having a grand holiday.

Tags: 11.1, opensuse, repositories

openSUSE 11.1 Compiz & NOMAD (xrdp)

Recently on the openSUSE Mailing list people have complained about issues with compiz not working, and all the issues seem to come back to the same answer being “install compiz without the NOMAD patch”.

Matt Sealey on the openSUSE Mailling list said it best with his question:

Pardon my asking and perhaps ignorance but what is this NOMAD patch?
All I can find Googling is a ton of problems people have with it but no
actual explanation of what it is or does?

I then googled NOMAD much like Matt tried and I saw the same fate that he ran into. Luckily I have played with it and hope to explain it a little to shed a tiny piece of light.

NOMAD to put simply is going to allow some breakthrough remote services while connecting to Linux machines. These remote services include, but are not limited to, RDP services to a Linux machine.

Ok, I know this sounds great and dandy but I do not think yet it’s ready for production as of RC1. There are still quite a few bugs that lower its functionality or keeps it from working on some systems. Once it is at a point where I feel it’s full funtion I’ll be blogging about it.

Now, how can you start helping out and testing it? If you’re running openSUSE 11.1 RC1 and you can install it by running:

sudo zypper in xrdp

If you’re running compiz (desktop decorations) be sure to install the following:

sudo zypper in compiz-plugins-dmx

You can then start the service by running:

sudo /sbin/service xrdp start

Now try doing:

rdesktop localhost

To check it out (Note: If you’re running kdm it will most likely not work, and even if you are running gdm, you may have some issues). Like I said, it’s not 100% yet.

Ok.. so this blog was really to get Compiz working in 11.1 on machines where Compiz was broken (due to the Compiz that ships with the NOMAD patch). To do this, use the compiz packages in the XGL Build Service Repository. The XGL repository differs from the Compiz repository because it does not have the included NOMAD patch.

I’m HOPING by the time final is released that this issue will be fixed, but that time is coming and I don’t get much information on the bugzilla report which can be found:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=444442

I’m hoping to test the compiz packages from “RC1″ again today.. but am still not holding my breath for a miracle.

Which brings me to the question:

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Note: I am including a quick installation guide for getting Compiz to work with openSUSE 11.1 PRE-RELEASE VERSIONS .. Note: I am using the factory repository.. when 11.1 is released I expect to see a openSUSE_11.1 repository so you wouldn’t use Factory at that time

sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XGL/openSUSE_Factory/ Compiz

Note: The above one line

Update the packages from that XGL Build Service repository:

sudo zypper up -t package -r Compiz

Switch to runlvl3

sudo init 3

login..

Remove the current compiz configurations:

rm -rf ~/.config/compiz

Switch to runlvl5

sudo init 5

Tags: compiz, nomad, opensuse

openSUSE ditches the EULA

Several weeks ago when upgrading to a Beta version of openSUSE 11.1 I complained about the EULA that I had to agree to after doing a zypper dup.

However, recently (in time for openSUSE 11.1 RC1) the openSUSE project has dropped what is considered a EULA and switched to a more conventional License Notice. You’ll still get the pop-up, but there is no longer a reason to have to agree to a EULA.

If you’re really bored you can read the full License Notice here.

As I pointed out earlier the previous EULA (although for a pre-release version) kept you from legally sharing your DVD or downloaded source, since it reported that you were not free to distribute. However this has been changed in the most recent License Notice here:

This agreement permits you to distribute unmodified copies of openSUSE 11.1 using the “openSUSE” trademark on the condition that you follow The openSUSE Project’s trademark guidelines located at http://www.opensuse.org/Legal.

Another thing this will likely change is what actually ships on the installation DVD’s. Since it’s now free to be distributed all packages included on it MUST be marked as freely distributable. Which very well may be the biggest reason why realplayer was dropped which I blogged about a few weeks ago.

I will give credit to the Fedora team who were the original creators of the License Agreement that was modified for the use on openSUSE, and much credit to openSUSE for recommending other project leaders looking to ditch the EULA to look at current project licenses instead of wasting the time to “re-invent the wheel”.

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Tags: 11.1, licensing, opensuse

NVIDIA 177.82 Linux Drivers Released (openSUSE 11)

New drivers for NVIDIA based cards have been released

Release Highlights
Added support for the following new GPUs:
Quadro NVS 450
Quadro FX 370 LP
Quadro FX 5800
Quadro FX 4800
Quadro FX 470
Quadro CX
Fixed a problem on recent mobile GPUs that caused a power management resume from S3 to take 30+ seconds.
Fixed a problem with hotkey switching on some recent mobile GPUs.
Fixed an image corruption issue seen in FireFox 3.

Download x86 here
Download x86_64 here

To install simply run:
Assuming you’re running x86_64

sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-177.82-pkg2.run

You can uninstall the previous version of the nvidia driver by running:

sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-177.82-pkg2.run –uninstall

ps. I would give a report on it, but like I said in my posting a few minutes ago.. my Beta 5 box is blah’ed up.. and NVIDIA driver doesn’t seem to be working correctly due to the new kernel.. I suspect it to work fine on openSUSE 11.0 / 11.1 Beta 4 and earlier.

Tags: nvidia, opensuse

My beta 5 woes - :(

Boy Oh Boy.. have I been having some issues after updating to the second sync of Beta 5 this morning.

#1 OpenOffice will not open anything over smb protocol.. Bugzilla 443467
#2 With Compiz when I close krdc (on KDE 3.5.10) it kills my whole X session (this is with xrdp and dmx packages installed) Bugzilla 444249
#3 KSnapshot kills my X session much like krdc (on KDE 3.5.10) Bugzilla 443819
#4 xrdp isn’t working with KDM due to pam issues, also when I have gdm I am still getting other errors Bugzilla 441750
#5 After installed the newest sync of beta 5 (as of this morning) the Kernel 2.6.27.5-2.2 seems to have killed my NVIDIA driver, and NVIDIA driver will not work as previous (I suspect kernel upgrade did it, as the other packages installed don’t seem to have anything to do with it) Note: This actually seems to be a compiz issue, where GLX will not stay loaded
#6 Ok.. not really a bug.. but some direction would be nice: removal of emerald or fix for emerald to work with NOMAD patch for X to get xrdp working Bugzilla 431846

All in all, this build of Beta 5 .. has given me quite the headaches..

How are other fairing with Beta 5?

Tags: 11.1, beta, broken, compiz, opensuse

The sad state of emerald for compiz & its possible demise

As some of you may know, emerald is a very nice themer for compiz. However, recently a major patch was applied known as the “nomad” patch. The patch was applied on Tuesday Sept 16th and has ripped havoc for people who use Emerald.

So you’d imagine someone just needs to fix emerald. However, emerald is no longer maintained which means, unless someone really steps up it’ll just be a memory.

So what are the choices for openSUSE 11.1?

Remove compiz-emerald to keep the number of bug reports down
Find someone to maintain emerald (alot harder then just removing it)
Applying a home built hack patch to keep in 11.1 and gracefully remove from 11.2 with correct notification to the community.
Revert back to compiz pre-nomad patch (not sure about the regressoins of this).

I personally have reverted back to the “pre-nomad” version of 0.7.8 (you can modify the spec file, and just remove the patch2) .. and am keeping emerald (as I like having control of the size of my taskbar etc.. since I think all the KDE Decorations waste tons of desktop space.

Edit: Does anyone know the version of Compiz / Compiz Emerald on Ubuntu 8.10 and if it works? If it does, why can’t the patch there be used for openSUSE emerald? If they opted “not” to use the NOMAD patch, why do we “have” to? < Dunno why I just thought of that.

Tags: 11.1, compiz, emerald, opensuse

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:

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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

Kernel tcp_output “work around” implemented for openSUSE 11.1 Beta 5

As some of you may have followed there is a bug in the 2.6.27 Kernel branch that was introduced when the order tcp output was changed when cleaning up some code. Here is the original commit that introduced the bug.

Ilpo jarvinen clears up some rumors about the bug:

There are some analysis which are claimed to be “very good” circulating around
which tell you that Linux now enabled timestamps in 2.6.27. Sadly that is a
_false_ claim, the timestamps were _not_ enabled for 2.6.27 (or -rc1). Don’t be
fooled wide-spreadness of the claims, sadly multiple distros seem to repeat and
support the false claim in their “semi-official” documentation. Timestamps have
been enabled already for a very long time before 2.6.27…
The real change that happened from 2.6.26 to 2.6.27, as described in the commit
which fixes this particular bug, was a change in the _order_ of the TCP options
(timestamps are tcp options). The order change was not intentional, not that it
should have broken something. The correct fix is to restore the original
ordering. …It is very easy to verify with tcpdump if 2.6.26 does send
timestamps or not (hint: look into SYN packet’s TCP options).

In the original bug report.

Want to know more about this issue, check this page out

Note: I realized that I called the issue a “bug” however it really isn’t a bug in the 2.6.27 kernel, but the non compliance of other hardware in the way it handles the tcp_output, since they shouldn’t care about the order (which is the standard).

Sorry I couldn’t write up more about it.. a bit busy today at work.

Tags: kernel, opensuse

Upgrading pidgin to 2.5.2 (also GIMP and more) on openSUSE 11.0

I was reading a thread on the openSUSE forums where someone asked for the newest version of pidgin, but the answers given were quite “blah” to me.

I added posted basiclly this same thing in the thread:

Add the GNOME Community repo:

sudo zypper ar sudo zypper ar Index of /repositories/GNOME:/Community/openSUSE_11.0 GNOME\ Community GNOME\ Community

Update the pidgin package:

sudo zypper in pidgin

(This is install)
or

sudo zypper up pidgin

(This is update)

Why don’t you just update all the packages included in the GNOME Community repository? Some of the packages in this repository are Tomboy and GIMP. To do this just run:

sudo zypper up -t package -r GNOME\ Community

(note: I am using the Repository name I added with the zypper ar

Tags: 11.0, opensuse, pidgin, tutorial