I've decided to break that up a bit. I have always tried to "keep up" with distro's other than what  I'm currently running in Virtual Machines, but I just don't keep up with it - I install them and never even boot them up. The only virtual I have that get's regular use is my XP Pro install. I might set one up to check out some new distro, or a new release, but I usually just delete it after I'm through playing :-)

I have 4 PC's that are running Linux (if you count Mom's PC). As of 2 days ago, I have my main desktop running Debian "Lenny" (currently the "testing" release, but soon to be stable - more on Debian in a minute). I have my Laptop running openSUSE 11.0 still, "Mom's PC" is running openSUSE 11.0, and I have an older single-core AMD64 running Foresight Linux. This allows me to acutally use and keep up with my 3 favorite distributions.

I really like openSUSE...a LOT. It works well for me on my laptop, which is an interesting case. It doesn't get along very well with a lot of Linux distributions. It's an older Pentium-M Thinkpad R40 with a dead on-board NIC - it's only Internet connection now is an Atheros based Wifi PCMCIA card which requires Madwifi to work. Although openSUSE doesn't have Madwifi out of the box, it's very easy to hit the Madwifi repository, download the RPM's, install them and then keep it up-to-date with YaST. Works very well, and once that is done openSUSE runs better on that machine than anything else I've tried. I chose openSUSE for Mom's PC since it's default GNOME layout is very "Windows Like" (Single Panel, GNOME-Main-Menu by default, etc. - yes I know any distro can be changed, but it's simple when it's like that out-of-box) and for YaST. She never learned how to do anything on Windows (going all the way back to 3.11), but I'm blown away by how much she's figured out and done on her own with this openSUSE install. The "single-panel" layout of openSUSE is great for my laptop with a 1024x768 screen, as well as for my Mom with her bad eyes running a 19" CRT at 800x600 and her fonts at 120DPI - it simply takes up less screen real-estate.

As for Foresight, I've loved it every since I first loaded it, and the community surrounding Foresight is world class (albeit a little small). These folks are absolutely, hands down the nicest and most helpful group of people I've ever met in the land of Linux! Regarding Foresight itself, it's very fast, and I love experimenting with the "conary" package manager - it's something totally different from anything else, and I find the way it works interesting if nothing else. Also, Foresight (like Debian) has a very "vanilla" GNOME implementation, which is something I'm beginning to value as I'm getting more into Mono and C# development, I like seeing how things interact on a Vanilla GNOME implementation, as well as a customized environment such as openSUSE's.

Now, for my main desktop and Debian. First, you may say "why load Lenny"? I decided to go ahead and load up Lenny and just follow it up until release. From what research I did it seems that Lenny is pretty darn stable right now, and very usable. Debian 4.0 "Etch" is great, very stable but it's a bit long in the tooth now regarding the age of packages, and I'm not sure I would have been happy with that as my "daily-driver" so to speak.

Also, I've never run Debian as a "daily-driver" distro. I've tried if a few times (briefly), but I've always defaulted back to Ubuntu for that - I always felt it was better suited for the desktop, but I'm beginning to change that opinion. I'm very happy with the install of Lenny and it's running faster than any other distro I've had on here for an extended period of time. I did do a very customized installation (building up from a base system) and I was very selective about what packages were installed. It seems the Debian release team is shooting for a September release of Lenny, and  I plan to stay on Lenny for a while after that, but will probably go to "Testing" again once it's nearing release again.

Due to my long-time use of Ubuntu as my main distro Debian itself is very familiar to me, and I've found the Debian User Forms to be a great resource for information I needed to get things set up. If you haven't considered Debian for a desktop distro, and don't mind getting your hands a little dirty, give it  a shot. A Debian install can be as easy or as hard as you'd like it be. For me, I just installed a "Base System" from the business-card ISO and built up from that (adding xorg, gnome-core, etc), and then adding what packages I wanted installed and nothing else. As a result I have a sleek, customized, streamlined system that has just what I need, just what I want and zero bloat! What more can you ask for?

Il rilascio della prima versione alpha di OpenSUSE 11.1 è stato annunciato poche ore fa.
È possibile seguire la roadmap a questa pagina.

Anche il team di Ubuntu ha annunciato il rilascio della terza alpha della prossima versione che ha il nome di Intrepid Ibex.

Per maggiori informazioni potete visitare questa pagina.

Fonte: LWN.net

Basically, a few weeks ago, I was suddenly unable to write/delete any file from my Windows FAT share in openSUSE. I use Windows XP Home and openSUSE 11, and was having a generally good time with openSUSE, until this problem occurred. I still work extensively in Windows, and so file-sharing between Linux and Windows is crucial. (ps. on the whole, I don't try to mess with the NTFS partition unless I have to, so I have set up a FAT partition in Windows to better facilitate file sharing from Linux to Windows)

Anyway, for a while I was able to write to my Windows FAT partition, then suddenly, out of the blue, I could only "read" the FAT partition, but not write to it. This affected even my usb flash drives (though this problem mysteriously went away). I desperately tried everything, looking in the internet, enabling NTFS-3G, tried changing permissions etc... but nothing worked. For a while I used my office server to transfer files, but it was getting irritating.

So I did something I never do, I went to the openSUSE forum to send out an s.o.s. help request post.

Just to show how noobish I really am, I just couldn't figure out how to enter a NEW post... there was only a <replypost> button but to put a <newpost> I struggled in vain. Ultimately after a long time of frustration I suddenly found a button the sections column for <newpost>. In a sense, while I did feel foolish, I still felt that it should be easier to find where to submit a new post, perhaps also in the side-bar. But that's just me.

Anyway, thinking mine was a hardware query, I posted my first request for help there entitled Cant write on FAT and NTFS (FAT write stopped working)

I realised that the openSUSE forum was quite active, meaning there were many posts requesting help. But when I started browsing for the new queries of other users, I realised that it was quite easy for my post to just disappear from the latest problem. And I think that's what happened. for a few days there was no response to my query.

I decided to change my category and write a new post in the applications category of the forum. The new post was entitled: Please help: Can't write/delete FAT (even with SuperUser)

Interestingly, I found almost immediately responses in my "please help" query (perhaps it does help to have a catchy headline?)... and I must state that the help came from none other some senior members and the global moderator (Swerdna). Wow, that's big!

Anyway, I was quite impressed by such high-level interest in my small request... and we went about trying to fix the problem... as forums do best... through dialogue. And ultimately... a certain DoctorJohn was helpful in intuiting that there could be a problem in my Windows Partition that stopped me from writing to the partition.

I know it all seems obvious now... but when I was going through the turmoil... it was far from a pleasant obvious experience.

Anyway... for the final solution this is what I did... and here's the HOW-TO part of the post:
1. I made a backup of my vfat partition.

2. Then in openSUSE I did:

umount /windows/E

2b. which was followed by

fsck.vfat /dev/sda5
(as root using "su")

3. There seemed to be an error in bootsector of the partition and asked whether I wanted to copy from the original to the backup or back to the original. I tried both, but I wasn't able to fix anything "no files changed" message came up, saying that there was some error in certain files (it thankfully named the files).

4. I therefore went to Windows and deleted those files. And scheduled a boot-time scandisk.

5. Upon completion of the Windows scandisk I reverted to openSUSE and tried to delete a file from my FAT drive...

6. and yes... IT WORKED!!!

Better still, I went to the NTFS partition through ROOT (ie FileManager Super User) and found that I could even write/delete to/from NTFS files.

Back to my review of the openSUSE forum, incidentally just yesterday I found two replies to my query in the hardware section, again, one of the helps was from a senior member. I found that while the openSUSE forum help may not be immediate, it did seem excellent when the help did arrive.

As for structure, it was a little irritating that the forum has a time-out... and does not remember sessions (ie. you have to keep logging in... but it seems to be a Novell related issue... so no need to bother about that).

Also, the forum is primarily "need help" oriented... at least where I went... and I wonder how the people helping have the time to help everyone... especially since the people helping me were pretty senior people (one of them confessed to help me while typing on his cell-phone!)

Anyway, I must admit that considering this was my first help request in a forum, I was more than satisfied by the result. I did need to be patient (a virtue I don't always have), but for serious issues I know I'll head faster to the openSUSE forum in the future.

(ps. it must be said on the record that the problem was actually IN windows and not in openSUSE linux. In fact, I wouldn't have been aware of the problem unless I was using linux for the FAT partition)

-----------

Foxconn deliberately sabotaging their BIOS to destroy Linux ACPI

You need to put in an email, and then it will bring up a form, choose Complain/Suggest.
------------
I disassembled my BIOS to have a look around, and while I won't post the results here,I'll tell you what I did find.

They have several different tables, a group for Windws XP and Vista, a group for 2000, a group for NT, Me, 95, 98, etc. that just errors out, and one for LINUX.

The one for Linux points to a badly written table that does not correspond to the board's ACPI implementation, causing weird kernel errors, strange system freezing, no suspend or hibernate, and other problems, using my modifications below, I've gotten it down to just crashing on the next reboot after having suspended, the horrible thing about disassembling any program is that you have no commenting, so it's hard to tell which does what, but I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a copy of Vista just to get the crashing caused by Foxconn's BIOS to stop, I am not going to be terrorized.

For those wondering, the board is a G33M-S.

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/product/Motherboards/detail_overview.aspx?ID=en-us0000327

-----
How to fix:

Get Intel's BIOS ACPI source compiler:

sudo apt-get install iasl

Dump your DSDT table:

sudo cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/DSDT > dsdt.dat

Disassemble it:

iasl -d dsdt.dat

Open it in Gedit:

gedit dsdt.dsl

Fix Foxconn sabotage:

Find, the section that starts out with

            If (_OSI ("Windows 2000"))
            {
                Store (0x04, OSVR)
            }

Go down til you get to the first

        }
        Else
        {

Past that you should see Linux alongside Windows NT, which is above another Else that leads to Windows Me.

Should look like:

            If (MCTH (_OS, "Linux"))

            {
                Store (0x3, OSVR)
            }

Change it to:

            If (_OSI ("Linux"))
            {
                Store (Zero, OSVR)
            }

Copy the section, and remove it and the other characters (CAREFULLY PRESERVING SYNTAX!!!!)

Then move the Linux section to right underneath Windows 2006 section.

It will look about like this now:

Name (OSVR, Ones)
    Method (OSFL, 0, NotSerialized)
    {
        If (LNotEqual (OSVR, Ones))
        {
            Return (OSVR)
        }

        If (LEqual (PICM, Zero))
        {
            Store (0xAC, DBG8)
        }

        Store (One, OSVR)
        If (CondRefOf (_OSI, Local1))
        {
            If (_OSI ("Windows 2000"))
            {
                Store (0x04, OSVR)
            }

            If (_OSI ("Windows 2001"))
            {
                Store (Zero, OSVR)
            }

            If (_OSI ("Windows 2001 SP1"))
            {
                Store (Zero, OSVR)
            }

            If (_OSI ("Windows 2001 SP2"))
            {
                Store (Zero, OSVR)
            }

            If (_OSI ("Windows 2001.1"))
            {
                Store (Zero, OSVR)
            }

            If (_OSI ("Windows 2001.1 SP1"))
            {
                Store (Zero, OSVR)
            }

            If (_OSI ("Windows 2006"))
            {
                Store (Zero, OSVR)
            }

            If (_OSI ("Linux"))
            {
                Store (Zero, OSVR)
            }
        }
        Else
        {
            If (MCTH (_OS, "Microsoft Windows NT"))
            {
                Store (0x04, OSVR)
            }
            Else
            {
                If (MCTH (_OS, "Microsoft WindowsME: Millennium Edition"))
                {
                    Store (0x02, OSVR)
                }
            }
        }

        Return (OSVR)
    }

Don't recompile it yet, or this will happen:

dsdt.dsl  6379:             Acquire (MUTE, 0x03E8)
Warning  1103 -                                 ^ Possible operator timeout is ignored

dsdt.dsl  6393:             Acquire (MUTE, 0x03E8)
Warning  1103 -                                 ^ Possible operator timeout is ignored

dsdt.dsl  6408:             Acquire (MUTE, 0x03E8)
Warning  1103 -                                 ^ Possible operator timeout is ignored

dsdt.dsl  6423:             Acquire (MUTE, 0x0FFF)
Warning  1103 -                                 ^ Possible operator timeout is ignored

dsdt.dsl  6437:             Acquire (MUTE, 0x03E8)
Warning  1103 -                                 ^ Possible operator timeout is ignored

dsdt.dsl  6452:             Acquire (MUTE, 0x03E8)
Warning  1103 -                                 ^ Possible operator timeout is ignored

dsdt.dsl  6467:             Acquire (MUTE, 0x03E8)
Warning  1103 -                                 ^ Possible operator timeout is ignored

Compilation complete. 0 Errors, 7 Warnings, 0 Remarks, 77 Optimizations

These are bogus mutes that are harmless to Windows (it ignores them), but crash Linux sporadically, soooo....

Find and replace all seven occurences of Acquire (MUTE, 0x03E8) and replace with Acquire (MUTE, 0xFFFF), it appears they're trying to crash the kernel by locking a region of memory that shouldn't be locked, but without access to their source code comments, I can only speculate, this tells it to lock a memory address that is always reserved instead. ;)

Now compile it

iasl -tc dsdt.dsl

(You shouldn't get any warnings,there are any warnings or ERRORS, go find out what you did wrong!)

And install it and configure the kernel to use it:

sudo cp dsdt.aml /etc/initramfs-tools/DSDT.aml

sudo update-initramfs -c -k all

All future kernels should automatically find it there and build it.

REBOOT
--------------

This doesn't seem to help much except get rid of the suspend/resume and then reboot issue, but it appears to fix the rest, their BIOS is damned sloppy it's hard to really even tell what you're doing in there.

Use this advice at your own risk.

So there you have it!

Edit: Complained to the Federal Trade Commission

http://www.ftc.gov

Foxconn
458 E. Lambert Road Fullerton
Fullerton, CA
92835

FOXCONN PHONE NUMBER: 714-871-9968

Company sold me a computer motherboard, model G33M-S, claiming that it was compliant with ACPI versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.

Linux and FreeBSD do not work with this motherboard due to it's ACPI configuration, using a disassembler program, I have found that it detects Linux specifically and points it to bad DSDT tables, thereby corrupting it's hardware support, changing this and setting the system to override the BIOS ACPI DSDT tables with a customized version that passes the Windows versions to Linux gives Linux ACPI support stated on the box, I am complaining because I feel this violates an anti-trust provision in the Microsoft settlement, I further believe that Microsoft is giving Foxconn incentives to cripple their motherboards if you try to boot to a non-Windows OS.

We have received your complaint.

Thank you for contacting the FTC. Your complaint has been entered into Consumer Sentinel, a secure online database available to thousands of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies worldwide. Your reference number is:
19642372

Edit: Full correspondence with Foxconn

Me:

ACPI issues, cannot reboot after having used suspend

Jul 22 08:37:53 ryan-pc kernel: ACPI: FACS 7FFBE000, 0040
Jul 22 08:37:53 ryan-pc kernel: ACPI: FACS 7FFBE000, 0040
Jul 22 08:37:53 ryan-pc kernel: ACPI: FACS 7FFBE000, 0040
Jul 22 08:37:53 ryan-pc kernel: ACPI: FACS 7FFBE000, 0040
Jul 22 08:37:53 ryan-pc kernel: ACPI Warning (tbutils-0217): Incorrect checksum in table [OEMB] - 70, should be 69 [20070126]

I get these messages in my system log at boot, I also fail to reboot after having used suspend in a session, it hangs and plays a continued beep on the PC speaker.

Foxconn:

Dear Ryan:

Do you get the same beep codes if you were to remove all RAM out and then turn the system ON again?

Me:

No, because then I wouldn't be able to boot into Linux, suspend to RAM, to get the ACPI failure, have syslogd pollute my /var/log/messages file with it, or read about it in my system log.

In particular, the number of quirks that the kernel has to use, and this invalid checksum are what has me nervous.

If you need me to attach the full contents of /var/log/messages, I can do so.

Foxconn:

Dear Ryan:

This board was never certified for Linux. It is only certified for Vista. See URL below. So please test under Vista. Does this issue also occured under Vista or Winxp?

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/produc...ification.aspx

Me:

Well, this is a replacement for a dead Intel board (a 945g that fully supported ACPI), Vista was never really up for consideration, and I'm not about to go buy a copy to find out.

The ACPI specs are there for a reason, and broken BIOS's like what is in this motherboard are the reason standard ACPI does not work, I've taken the liberty of filing the report in kernel.org, Red Hat, and Canonical's Ubuntu bug tracking systems, and posting the contents of my kernel error log on my blog, which is in the first several results if you Google search "Foxconn G33M" or "Foxconn G33M-s", "Foxconn Linux", etc, as well as prominently in other search formats, so hopefully this will save other people from a bad purchase, and hopefully kernel.org can work around your broken BIOS in 2.6.26, as I understand that kernel is more forgiving of poorly written BIOSes built for Windows.

I've already gotten several dozen hits on those pages, so you guys are only hurting yourselves in the long run, by using bad BIOS ROMs, as people like me are quite vocal when dealing with a bad product.

Foxconn:

Dear Ryan,

Making idle treats is not going to solve anything.

As already stated this model has not been certified under Linux nor supported.

As you are unhappy with the product- using a non-support operating system nor certified, please contact your reseller for a refund.

Me:

Yeah, well, I allege that you guys thoroughly suck.

Learn how to write a BIOS before you go selling hardware with falsified specs.

Me:

I've been debugging your AMI BIOS, and the ACPI support on it is far from within compliance with the standards, I've dumped out the debugging data into Canonical's Launchpad bug tracking system so that we may be able to support some sort of a workaround for the bad ACPI tables in your BIOS, I would hope that you will be part of the solution instead of the problem, alienating customers and telling them to go buy a copy of Windows Vista is not service, your product claims to be ACPI compliant and is not, therefore you are falsely advertising it with features it isn't capable of.

I would ask that you issue an update that doesn't make it dependent upon Windows Hardware Error Architecture, but that decision is up to you.

Please find all relevant data here:

Bug #251338 in Ubuntu: “Bad ACPI support on Foxconn G33M/G33M-S motherboards with AMI BIOS”
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/251338

I appreciate your consideration in this matter.

-Ryan

Foxconn:

Dear Ryan,

You are incorrect in that the motherboard is not ACPI complaint. If it were not, then it would not have received Microsoft Certification for WHQL.

Refer to:
http://winqual.microsoft.com/HCL/Pro...33M-S&oid=3179

As already stated, this model has not been certified under Linux nor supported.

It has been marketed as a Microsoft Certified Motherboard for their operating systems.

Me:

I've found separate DSDT tables that the BIOS hands to Linux specifically, changing it to point to the DSDT tables Vista gets fixes all Linux issues with this board.

So while I accept that you've gotten some kind of Microsoft Certification (doesn't surprise me), that does not make your board ACPI capable, just that Windows is better at coping with glitches custom tailored to it, for this purpose.

Foxconn:

Dear Ryan,

Stop sending us these!!!

Me:

Your BIOS is actually pretty shoddy, I've taken the liberty of posting everything that's wrong with the DSDT lookup tables and how to fix some of it so the community that has already purchased your filth can make do with it, also, it's now pretty much impossible to google Foxconn and Linux in the same sentence without getting hit by the truth, that your boards aren't good enough to handle it.

Have a very nice day.

Foxconn:

Dear Ryan,

Surely this is the way to ask for us to attempt to fix something that is not supported in the first place.

Me:

Would it be so difficult? I mean really? I suppose you've never heard of building a happy customer base vs. just angering everyone that deals with your products to the point they make sure others don't make the mistake of buying them.

You know, I have several computers, and they all support any OS I want to put there, as well they should, if you can't fix the damaged BIOS you put there intentionally, can you at least put a big thing on the site that says no LInux support so people won't make the mistake of buying your stuff?

Your DSDT table looks like it was written by a first year computer science student, it is scary, I will not just shut up and go away until I feel like I've been done right, this can end up on Digg, Slashdot, filed with the FTC that you are passing bad ACPI data on to Linux specifically.

I saw you targeting Linux with an intentionally broken ACPI table, you also have one for NT and ME, a separate one for newer NT variants like 2000, XP, Vista, and 2003/2008 Server, I'm sure that if you actually wrote to Intel ACPI specs instead of whatever quirks you can get away with for 8 versions of Windows and then go to the trouble of giving a botched table to Linux (How much *is* Microsoft paying you?) it would end up working a lot better, but I have this idea you don't want it to.

Full of lies:

Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you'll ever need, from word processing and email applications, to web server software and programming tools.

more lies:

Once installed your system is immediately ready-to-use. On the desktop you have a full set of productivity, internet, drawing and graphics applications, and games.

good PR, though deceitful.

I almost puke:

Ubuntu 'Just Works'

We've done all the hard work for you. Once Ubuntu is installed, all the basics are in place so that your system will be immediately usable.

In the meanwhile, you don't see any of them doing scams like ubu does.

1 2 3 4 5 6

You don't have to look far to seek for the truth. Let's look at the wikis. As a luser, I rarely find ubuntu wiki useful 1 2, what you need is up there ^ see 'hard work'. Why so cumbersome? I don't have to deal with these scam shits in opensuse. I search for stuff like java, flash in the search box then I install them. Probably because opensuse has this 1-click install thingy (slow at least it works) and most importantly suse devs is not pussy enough not to have bi arch in their distro. Unlike ubu. more 1 2 3

If I want to read some real technical wiki, this is the place I go to. IMHO ubu's predecessor contributes more.

While M Shuttle is calling for linux to surpass osx in the near future. I just hope that he would plan another space tour and never come back this time. Humanity my ass.

A pesar de tratarse de una beta previa, lo cierto es que openSUSE 11.0 será sin duda una de las mejores ediciones de una distribución que ha recuperado su antiguo encanto, gracias en gran parte a la excelente integración de KDE 4.

Sin duda, la gran estrella de openSUSE 11.0 Beta 2 es KDE 4.0.3, el entorno de escritorio totalmente integrado con esta distribución y que permite comprobar por fin lo que puede dar de sí este desarrollo. Si a eso le unimos la mejora en la gestión de paquetes y la potencia de la tecnología 1-Click-Install, tenemos ante nosotros una edición sobresaliente de openSUSE, que además integra con éxito GNOME 2.22.1.

El trabajo con los repositorios ha mejorado notablemente, pero en esta edición previa aún no se cumplen las promesas que hacen que la velocidad de resolución de dependencias sea tan vertiginosa como prometen sus desarrolladores. El soporte de códecs multimedia sigue estando ausente por defecto, aunque es fácil resolver esta limitación gracias a terceras partes.

Hemos podido echarle un vistazo a una de las versiones previas de openSUSE 11.0, y parece evidente que los desarrolladores de esta comunidad quieren dejar claras dos cosas: las mejoras son muchas, y KDE 4 cobra aquí otro sentido. El nuevo entorno de escritorio dispone de una puesta en escena excepcional, incluso en esta versión previa.

Mientras que otras distribuciones como Ubuntu, Fedora o Mandriva siguen ciclos de desarrollos de aproximadamente 6 meses para cada nueva versión, en openSUSE no se ciñen estrictamente a ese programa, y en realidad desde que apareciera la versión 10.0 los ciclos han ido cambiando y han pasado a ser de entre 8 y 10 meses entre una versión y la siguiente.

Se puede comprobar de un vistazo si observamos las fechas de lanzamiento de los últimos años:

openSUSE 9.2: 25/10/2004
openSUSE 9.3: 15/04/2005
openSUSE 10.0: 06/10/2005
openSUSE 10.1: 11/05/2006
openSUSE 10.2: 07/12/2006
openSUSE 10.3: 04/10/2007
openSUSE 11.0: 19/06/2008

Como veis, los desarrolladores de la comunidad openSUSE se tomaron 10 meses para lanzar openSUSE 10.3, una distribución que corrigió problemas importantes con la gestión de paquetes. Y se lo están tomando con relativa calma también para esta versión 11.0, que aparecerá el próximo 19 de junio de 2008 y que supondrá la integración definitiva de algunas características muy importantes, pero sobre todo de una muy destacable: la llegada de KDE 4 en todo su esplendor.

Una instalación vertiginosa

La llegada del citado KDE 4 a esta distribución también ha tenido impacto en otro componente muy conocido por todos los fans de openSUSE. Se trata de YaST, la aplicación que permite acceder a todos (o casi todos) los recursos de configuración de esta distribución, y que en esta nueva versión de openSUSE está basada en Qt4. Eso se nota sobre todo en la instalación, que también depende de este componente y que nos presenta en la versión 11.0 una atractiva interfaz en el que deberemos ir configurando las distintas características de la que será nuestra instalación de openSUSE.

De hecho, el proceso de instalación no sólo es más bonito, también es muchísimo más rápido. Incluso el funcionamiento del asistente varía sensiblemente, ya que introduciremos la mayoría de datos antes de la copia definitiva de archivos, mientras que en los asistentes de instalación anteriores había apartados (como la creación de cuentas de usuario) que se dejaban para las etapas finales de la instalación. En openSUSE 11.0 Beta 2, una vez hayamos seleccionado las opciones regionales, el esquema de particiones (una etapa siempre delicada para los no expertos) y otras opciones como el entorno de escritorio a instalar por defecto, comenzará la descompresión y copia de los paquetes de instalación.

Precisamente en este punto es donde entra en juego la nueva tecnología de compresión de paquetes. El algoritmo LZMA (Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain Algorithm) ya se ha utilzado con éxito en aplicaciones como 7-Zip, y es uno de los secretos de esa mejora en los tiempos de instalación de openSUSE 11.0. LZMA no sólo comprime mejor: también lo hace más rápido, lo que supone una ventaja fundamental para ofrecer una rápida instalación de los llamados patrones (patterns) con los que openSUSE trabaja desde hace tiempo. Esos patrones permiten definir grupos de paquetes que queremos instalar, y por ejemplo aparecen en forma de paquetes de desarrollo Cy C++ (los necesarios para compilar más tarde muchas aplicaciones Open Source), o en forma del patrón para instalar KDE 4 o el antiguo KDE 3.5 que sigue estando presente en openSUSE de forma opcional. Podemos modificar dichos grupos de paquetes durante la instalación, pero igualmente podremos seleccionar estos patrones más adelante desde YaST, de modo que hagamos lo que hagamos, notaremos una mayor velocidad en la instalación de paquetes en esta distribución.

La otra responsable de esa instalación "vertiginosa" es precisamente la nueva técnica aplicada por los desarrolladores de openSUSE, que en este caso han aplicado la misma idea que los desarrolladores de Windows Vista: para reducir el tiempo utilizan un curioso truco que hace que en el CD o DVD de instalación contemos con una imagen del sistema operativo, de modo que en realidad no se copia paquete por paquete, sino que la estructura de directorios y archivos de openSUSE ya está implícito en la imagen, y sólo basta descomprimirlo al disco duro para que todo quede preparado. La eficiencia de dicha solución es impresionante, como comprobaréis si medís el tiempo de instalación de openSUSE 10.3 y de esta versión beta de openSUSE 11.0.

KDE 4, cada vez más prometedor

Es cierto que la llegada de KDE 4 y de su primera versión, KDE 4.0.0, fue considerada como precipitada por parte de los seguidores de este entorno de escritorio. Lo cierto es que esos usuarios llevaban razón: el grado de estabilidad y las prestaciones de esta cuarta familia de entornos de escritorio eran muy limitados, pero afortunadamente los desarrolladores de esta solución pronto pulieron los errores más importantes. Hoy en día ya tenemos con nosotros la versión KDE 4.0.4, que ya es calificada con un notable alto por aquellos que hasta hace dos días la criticaban duramente. Las mejoras introducidas son muchas, pero afectan esencialmente a la propia estabilidad de un entorno de escritorio que en sus dos primeras versiones fallaba más que una escopeta de feria. La usabilidad de este entorno es ahora sencillamente fantástica, y las propuestas de diseño de los desarrolladores de KDE 4 se ponen de manifiesto en openSUSE, la distribución que ha integrado de forma más elegante y efectiva este entorno de escritorio entre sus componentes. A la espera, eso sí, de la llegada de KDE 4.1, que será según muchos la verdadera "primera versión" de los entornos de escritorio de la familia KDE 4. Eso será, no obstante, algo más tarde, el 29 de julio de 2008, tal y como señala el roadmap de este proyecto.

La versión incluida en openSUSE 11.0 Beta 2 es KDE 4.0.3, que fue considerada como la primera edición "estable" de KDE 4, y que desde luego ha dado un salto cualitativo impresionante respecto a las primeras versiones. El propio tema por defecto, con acabados muy metálicos que recuerdan la interfaz de Mac OS X, es muy elegante, pero es en sus opciones y aplicaciones donde KDE 4 destaca. Gran parte de la responsabilidad de esa potencia visual es de Plasma, el componente que se encarga de la interfaz de escritorio: tanto el propio escritorio como el panel/barra de tareas, y sus elementos relacionados. La arquitectura del entorno hace posible la entrada en juego de cosas como los componentes de escritorio, que no son más que los widgets de Mac OS X o los gadgets de Windows Vista, también presentes en este entorno de escritorio de forma nativa. No es una idea nueva: Linux ya disponía de este tipo de opciones gracias a programas como SuperKaramba o gdesklets, pero los nuevos entornos de escritorio han tratado de ofrecer de forma más transparente esta opción que en KDE 4.0.3 está muy presente con un pequeño botón en la parte superior izquierda que permite gestionar el uso de nuevos componentes de escritorio, como relojes, calculadoras, pequeñas y divertidas miniaplicaciones que nos muestran la última viñeta de Dilbert, o programas muy funcionales que actúan como gestores de aplicaciones ya abiertas.

Es tan sólo uno de los detalles de la potencia visual que introduce KDE 4, y que obviamente funciona sin problemas con el gestor de ventanas de composición Compiz, esa verdadera delicia para los ojos que no sólo aporta potencia y atractivo visual, sino que además puede (y debe) ser aprovechado para mejorar la propia usabilidad del GUI. Una de las aplicaciones que más destacan en este desarrollo es Dolphin, el nuevo explorador de ficheros que nos recuerda mucho al nuevo Finder de Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, y que permite todo un mundo de opciones: desde las visuales (presentar los archivos por columnas, dividir el explorador en dos partes con origen y destino diferenciados, ver listas por detalles o por iconos de gran tamaño) hasta las funcionales, con scripts y funciones de búsqueda integrada que se nutren de Beagle y que demuestran que Dolphin ha tomado lo mejor del veterano Konqueror y lo ha combinado con mejoras espectaculares.

Precisamente la presencia de Konqueror también es, cómo no, destacada, y parte del protagonismo se lo lleva su motor de renderizado, KHTML, que se desarrolló íntegramente como proyecto Open Source y que poco a poco vio como le iban saliendo hijos tan díscolos como prometedores. WebKit ha sido el más famoso de todos, y de hecho es el motor del cada vez más refinado Safari, el navegador de Apple. En julio de 2007 se decidió que ambas ramas de desarrollo (la original, con KHTML, y la derirvada, WebKit) volverían a unir sus fuerzas, por lo que poco a poco comienzan a verse signos de que la potencia de este motor llegará más temprano que tarde a Konqueror, que ahora es esencialmente un navegador web, aunque tradicionalmente también era el explorador de ficheros de KDE.

Otro de los componentes estrella de openSUSE 11.0 y de KDE 4 será Kickoff, el menú de inicio que permite el acceso a documentos, aplicaciones y carpetas predefinidas del sistema operativo. La apuesta de KDE es clara en este sentido, como ya lo fue la del proyecto Slab de GNOME: ofrecer un nuevo paradigma para la navegación por el menú de inicio. En lugar de esos menús de aplicaciones interminables de Windows, Kickoff propone una ventana autocontenida por la que nos movemos con pestañas que dividen los objetos en aplicaciones, documentos, y lugares. En cada una de ellas podremos encontrar en primera instancia aquellos elementos a los que accedemos más frecuente o recientemente, para luego poder acceder al resto de objetos mediante menús desplegables, pero autocontenidos en esa pequeña ventana. El concepto puede chocar al principio, pero también lo hizo el nuevo menú de inicio de Windows Vista que también se basaba en esa idea, y es evidente que si se ha implementado así es porque este modo de trabajo es más eficiente según los tests de usabilidad que se han llevado a cabo.

Kickoff también destaca por otro concepto de usabilidad que está pegando fuerte en los entornos de escritorio e interfaces gráficas de todos los sistemas operativos de última hornada: las búsquedas. El campo de búsquedas está presente en la parte superior de Kickoff, y se puede nutrir del motor de búsquedas convencional o del proyecto Beagle, que desde hace tiempo es uno de los componentes sin discusión integrados en openSUSE. Este buscador programado con la plataforma Mono trata de igualar las prestaciones de Spotlight en Mac OS X o de Windows Search en Windows Vista, así como de otras opciones como Google Desktop (disponible para todas las plataformas) o su rival más cercano, Tracker. Precisamente el debate entre la superioridad de uno y otro motor sigue manteniéndose en la cresta de la ola, y por ejemplo la nueva distribución de Ubuntu, la 8.04, ha abandonado Beagle en función de Tracker. Las ventajas de Beagle son muchas, pero también es cierto que se trata de un motor algo pesado (todos los desarrollos en Mono suelen tener ese problema), mientras que Tracker "molesta menos", y ofrece prestaciones igualmente destacables. Los desarrolladores de openSUSE están tan volcados con Beagle que incluyen su propia interfaz KDE 4 para este buscador, que han bautizado con el nombre de Kerry y que está presente en openSUSE desde la versión 10.1.

GNOME 2.22, otra joya, aunque menos brillante

La distribución de la comunidad de usuarios de openSUSE ha sido tradicionalmente campo de los usuarios de KDE. Así nació (al contrario que lo que ocurrió con Ubuntu, abonada a GNOME), y así se mantuvo tras la compra de SUSE por parte de Novell. Sin embargo, en aquel momento algo cambió: aquella empresa no sólo había comprado a SUSE, sino que algún tiempo antes también se había hecho con Ximian, cuyos fundadores Miguel de Icaza y Nat Friedman habían gestado el nacimiento de GNOME y su expansión en todo el mundo Linux. Probablemente esa nueva "sociedad" hizo que tanto la distribución oficial (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop /Server) y la de la comunidad (openSUSE) tuvieran mucho más en cuenta a GNOME.

Eso se ha vuelto a notar en openSUSE 11.0, aunque también es cierto que la integración no está tan cuidada como en el caso de KDE 4, que a nuestro juicio es "la niña bonita" de los desarrolladores de KDE. GNOME, afirman esos mismos desarrolladores, sigue siendo un bastión de openSUSE, y el 25% de los usuarios de esta distribución apuestan por este entorno de escritorio (datos presentados en PDF en el reciente FOSDEM08 celebrado en Bruselas en febrero de 2008) lo que hace que los desarrolladores tengan muy en cuenta a este entorno de escritorio. Pero quizás no lo suficiente, ya que se notan algunas deficiencias que no notamos cuando trabajamos con KDE 4. Es la misma sensación (sólo que a la inversa) que cuando uno trabaja con Ubuntu (no Kubuntu, cuidado) e instala los paquetes necesarios para trabajar con KDE 4. La integración del entorno de escritorio por parte de los desarrolladores de la distribución es muy importante para sacarle el mayor partido posible a sus componentes, y en este sentido parece evidente que en openSUSE están más centrados en KDE que en GNOME.

Eso no quiere decir que el comportamiento de GNOME sea pobre en esta edición, ni mucho menos. Todas las grandes novedades de GNOME 2.22 están presentes en openSUSE 11, de modo que podremos sacarle todo el partido a GVFS, Policykit, aplicaciones como Cheese, Vinagre, Evolution, el nuevo reloj internacional o el IDE Anjuta, apartados sobre los que ya hemos hablado largo y tendido en nuestro reciente análisis de Ubuntu, titulado "8.04 Hardy Heron, un paso atrás". Así pues, aquellos que quieran aprovechar la potencia de GNOME 2.22 tendrán todo a su alcance, aunque quizás en ciertos apartados sean necesarios algunos ajustes finos por parte del propio usuario para dejarlo todo a su gusto, una sensación que no tenemos al trabajar con KDE 4.

Ese soporte a GNOME no sólo se nota en la inclusión de una de las ediciones más recientes de este entorno de escritorio, sino en la presencia de algunas herramientas totalmente desarrolladas por ingenieros de openSUSE que se encargan de hacer sus propias aportaciones a esta solución. Una de las más relevantes es la versión de YaST realizada con librerías GTK+, conocida como YaST2-GTK y que ofrece todas las prestaciones de YaST a los usuarios de GNOME, pero respetando además el aspecto visual y comportamiento de esta alternativa.

Gestión de paquetes mejorada

Si algo se podía achacar a las versiones previas de openSUSE era que el administrador de paquetes se estaba volviendo más un problema que una solución. Miles de usuarios nos vimos afectados por unas decisiones en el sistema de gestión de paquetes que no hacían más que perjudicar a los usuarios, con tiempos infinitos de recarga de repositorios o descarga e instalación de paquetes RPM.

La aparición de ZMD como gestor de actualizaciones no dio más que quebraderos de cabeza, y desde la versión 10.1 de openSUSE los responsables de esta distribución estuvieron trabajando en el sistema actual, basado en el componente llamado libzypp, que se aprovecha tanto en el gestor gráfico de YaST como a través de la consola de comandos con la sentencia zypper. La gestión de repositorios es ahora mucho más rápida, y sobre todo destaca por la inclusión desde openSUSE 10.3 de los llamados "Community repositories", es decir, los repositorios de terceras partes que hasta la fecha no habían sido aceptados de forma oficial, pero contribuían de una forma determinante a aportar paquetes muy útiles para los usuarios finales. Packman, por ejemplo, era uno de esos repositorios clásicos, y gracias a su inclusión oficial los usuarios pudieron acceder fácilmente a las aplicaciones y componentes multimedia que permitían disfrutar de las canciones MP3 o de los DVDs sin ningún problema.

Esas mejoras han permanecido en openSUSE 11.0, pero además se han visto ampliadas gracias a un nuevo algoritmo de resolución de dependencias, llamado SAT (ver presentación del FOSDEM en PDF). Este algoritmo permite que a través de expresiones booleanas (AND, OR, etc.) se permitan tratar los problemas de dependencias de paquetes mucho más fácilmente y de forma muy potente. Este tipo de concepto ha sido muy estudiado en entornos académicos y dispone de muchas soluciones válidas, lo que garantiza su buen comportamiento en la práctica, como parece demostrar el nuevo YaST. Según sus desarrolladores, los tiempos de actualización de servidores y de instalación de paquetes es muchísimo más rápido que el de la anterior versión, como demuestran las pruebas expuestas en el FOSDEM 08 en las que mientras que con una versión anterior las operaciones de las pruebas llevaban más de un minuto, con el nuevo YaST basado en el algoritmo SAT esas mismas operaciones se completaban en tan solo 9 segundos.

openSUSE en la vida real

Si dejamos de lado estas cuestiones técnicas, lo que el usuario final se encontrará al instalar esta edición de openSUSE (o más bien, la versión final que aparecerá a mediados de junio) es un sistema operativo muy completo. Parece que, al igual que sucedión con la versión 10.3, contaremos tanto con CDs individuales de instalación (uno para GNOME, o uno para KDE, y yo apostaría por tres, que incluirían tanto GNOME como KDE 4 y KDE 3.5) como con un DVD, mientras que hasta hace poco la norma era la de ofrecer la distribución en varios CDs o un DVD. Esto es interesante para reducir tanto los servidores de descarga como las propias instalaciones base de los usuarios: además del entorno de escritorio elegido se nos ofrecerán herramientas multimedia, ofimáticas y comunicaciones muy relevantes. Obviamente, tendremos disponibles varias CDs y DVDs dependiendo de la plataforma utilizada (32 y 64 bits, PowerPC), algo que ya se está viendo también en las versiones previas como esta Beta 2, que se pueden descargar desde servidores de desarrollo.

Por ejemplo, en openSUSE 11.0 Beta 2 contamos con el núcleo 2.6.25 y las ramas glib 2.8 y gcc 4.3 de esos apartados algo más técnicos más destinados a desarrolladores. Para los usuarios "de a pie" destaca la presencia de OpenOffice.org 2.4, una suite ofimática cada vez más capaz que como últimas novedades ha aportado muchísimas mejoras en las características gráficas tanto en su hoja de cálculo como en Impress, el "PowerPoint" de OOo. Eso no es todo, claro: KOffice 2.0 (aún en estado alpha) es otra de las apuestas del equipo de openSUSE, con lo que disponemos de dos suites de lo más potentes, y que apuestan, cómo no, por el estándar de documentos ODF.

En el apartado multimedia es interesante la apuesta por Banshee, un reproductor muy potente que no obstante no oculta el hecho de que la verdadera estrella en la reproducción de audio es, sin lugar a dudas, Amarok, cuya versión 2.0 está al caer. Para los formatos de vídeo disponemos de varias alternativas como Xine o Totem, las propuestas más clásicas en KDE y GNOME que ofrecen excelentes prestaciones.

Precisamente el apartado multimedia está muy cuidado gracias a la inclusión de PulseAudio, la nueva arquitectura de sonido que permite controlar los recursos de sonido de forma mucho más potente, pudiendo por ejemplo asignar distinto volumen a cada aplicación. Si quieres oir bajita la música del juego para poder jugar con lo que estás oyendo en Amarok, bastará con que controles el mezclador que ofrece PulseAudio para bajar el volumen de una aplicación y subir el de la otra. Este desarrollo también se usa en Hardy Heron, pero allí por ejemplo es necesario instalar el paquete padevchooser para poder acceder a las opciones avanzadas de control de PulseAudio que en openSUSE están perfectamente situadas en la barra de tareas, tanto en GNOME como en KDE.

En cuanto a Internet, contamos con todas las ventajas de KDE 4 y GNOME 2.22, pero además en openSUSE también han optado, curiosamente, por Firefox 3 beta 5 en lugar de esperar por una versión final y seguir mientras tanto con Firefox 2. Es una decisión de diseño que no compartimos, pero es evidente que sus responsables han valorado la estabilidad y estado actual de Firefox y han creído que era la opción más interesante. A partir de aquí podremos optar por otros navegadores como Konqueror, que aún cuenta con algún que otro problemilla, y por un sinfín de utilidades a la hora de conectarnos a redes de mensajería instantánea (Pidgin sigue siendo el rey), clientes de correo (Evolution es la clara referencia en GNOME mientras que KMail, parte de KDEPIM 4.1, lo es en KDE, con Thunderbird acompañándoles) y todo tipo de recursos y protocolos adicionales.

Conclusiones

La impresionante integración de KDE 4 en esta distribución de openSUSE es sin duda una de las grandes sorpresas de las que los usuarios podrán disfrutar, pero no será la única. Sus desarrolladores están teniendo ideas geniales en otros apartados como los que afectan a la instalación, la inclusión de GNOME 2.22 o la resolución de las dificultades con el gestor de paquetes, uno de los apartados que habían hecho perder galones en versiones anteriores. Así pues, nos encontramos ante una de las grandes protagonistas del mercado Linux en general, y de esta temporada primaveral en particular: de hecho, creemos que mientras que Ubuntu ha dado un paso atrás con características poco robustas en su reciente Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Hardy Heron, la propuesta de openSUSE está creciendo con muy buenos criterios, tal y como indica la inmensa lista de mejoras que se han incluido. Si todo lo que promete se cumple, puede que nos encontremos ante la mejor openSUSE de la historia.

Começou a rodada de desenvolvimento do openSUSE 11.1, a próxima versão do openSUSE, que deve ser lançado perto do Natal...

Traduzindo o e-mail do Christoph Thiel (que está gerenciando o desenvolvimento junto com o Stephan Kulow que ficará dois meses de fora)

Olá a todos,

O openSUSE 11.1 Alpha1 está disponível -- mas, cuidado, este é um is an Alpha com muitas arrestas a arredondar

Enquanto estava testando ele num Thinkpad R51, o sistema não inicializou após o primeiro estágio da instalação. Estamos procurando por isto no bug (#411937). Adicionalmente, a instalação padrão do GNOME irá se queixar de um pacote faltante (fornecendo gnome-session-branding)[1].

Com o problema atual no carregador de inicialização, usar os DVDs para instalar não é recomendado, até que tenhamos um contorno deste problema. Por favor, teste os LiveCDs ao invés!

openSUSE 11.1 Alpha1 GNOME LiveCDs:

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1-Alpha1/iso/cd/openSUSE-11.1-Alpha1-GNOME-LiveCD-i386.iso

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1-Alpha1/iso/cd/openSUSE-11.1-Alpha1-GNOME-LiveCD-x86_64.iso
openSUSE 11.1 Alpha1 KDE4 LiveCDs:

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1-Alpha1/iso/cd/openSUSE-11.1-Alpha1-KDE4-LiveCD-i386.iso

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1-Alpha1/iso/cd/openSUSE-11.1-Alpha1-KDE4-LiveCD-x86_64.iso

Por favor tenha em referência http://software.opensuse.org/developer para maiores detalhes e todos os links.

Feliz teste,
Christoph

bom, acho que está na hora de eu mudar meus repositórios para os da versão factory e começar a brincar! :)

Os bugs conhecidos da versão: http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs_11.1_dev

abraços!

clic en la imagen para agrandar

El de fedora es el que tengo ahora como avatar de wordpress, En un futuro no muy lejano :P espero poder agregar más y terminar los retoques, cuando los termine los subo para el que los quiera, los pueda utilizar.

Chau, sigo estudiando...

On my recently upgraded openSUSE 11.1 Factory (Alpha 0) I've just retried to get my KDE trunk checkout back to work again (after I unbroke my system after one canceled system upgrade). The first step was replacing kdm3 with kdm4 ... after a lot of fiddling with config files (/etc/sysconfigs/displaymanager), xessions, recompiling the kdm module, setting the right path variables, etc. I finally got it to work *sight*

But it has payed off.. it looks REALLY cool in the default theme :-)

Well... problem 1 -- Solved

Let's attack problem 2: KDE startup... I've removed my config files to get a clean setup.. well.. seems it was the wrong decision.. the current trunk (24.7.2008) has a bug which prevents the recreation of the configs (if I've understood the problem correctly) .. it's described here:

Mailing list entry: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=121615750824656&w=2

I've tried the patch.. doesn't work.. I've tried the script.. doesn't work.. plasma just won't start.. krunner works, and all programs I start from it .. as far as I've seen plasma starts and disappears emmediately :-(

well... I'll try copying my config  files from my notebook to that pc.. hope that will work out.. stay tuned for some more news tomorrow ^^

btw: take a look at phoronix (http://www.phoronix.com) ... very interesting articles to read.. my favourite articles atm are about the upcoming improvements in the X-Server (GEM, DRI2, Kernel based mode settings) .. can't get enough of news about them ^^

Dear Ryan,

As you are unhappy with the product- using a non-support operating system nor certified, please contact your reseller for a refund.

My reply to Foxconn is this, I've also emailed them a copy:

I've been debugging your AMI BIOS, and the ACPI support on it is far from within compliance with the standards, I've dumped out the debugging data into Canonical's Launchpad bug tracking system so that we may be able to use some sort of a workaround for the bad ACPI tables in your BIOS, I would hope that you will be part of the solution instead of the problem, alienating customers and telling them to go buy a copy of Windows Vista is not service, your product claims to be ACPI compliant and is not, therefore you are falsely advertising it with features it isn't capable of.

I appreciate your consideration in this matter.

Anketa Czech Open Source 2008 je anketou, jejímž cílem je ocenění nejzajímavějších a nejprospěšnějších projektů z české open-source scény. Anketu pořádá český zpravodajský server Root.cz.

Cílem ankety je popularizace myšlenky open source a ocenění konkrétních tuzemských projektů, které si zaslouží pozornost uživatelů. Pro hlasování bylo vyhlášeno šest kategorií: akce, osobnost, projekt, software, firma a blog.

Citováno z http://cos.root.cz

Stejně jako minulý rok jsem se hlasování zúčastnil. Vyjádřil jsem tím takové malé poděkování lidem/společnostem, jejichž produkty používám. Jestli si dobře vzpomínám, tak jsem hlasoval pro:

Slax - software

Czilla - projekt

LinuxAlt - akce

Vlastimil Ott - osobnost

Blog nejen o prohlížečích - blog

Novell - firma

To ale není zas tak důležité. Každý hlasující se svým hlasováním dostává do slosování o různé ceny. O to víc jsem byl překvapený, když mi někdy v polovině května dorazil do schránky e-mail, že jsem vyhrál šestou cenu. Nenapsali mi tam ale, co ta šestá cena, jenom přiložili link. Tak tedy klikám a dozvídám se, že je to krabicová verze distribuce openSuSE 10.2. Potěšen svou výhrou a zároveň zaskočen starší vezí distribuce (aktuální byla 10.3 a za týden měla vyjít 11) odpovídám na e-mail a posílám kontaktní adresu. A samozřejmě jsem zvědavý, kdy balíček dorazí...

Dorazil asi za týden. České poště opět pěkně děkuju za nádherně pomačkaný balíček. Doteď nechápu, jak se mohly vevnitř úplně rozsypat reklamní sirky 602office. Další překvapení na mě čekalo při otevírání krabice s instalačníma cédečkama. Poslali mi verzi 10.3. Za to dík. Na tu jedenáctku už si to aktualizuju sám, říkám si.

OpenSuSE jsem samozřejmě vyzkoušel, nainstaloval, upgradoval, hrabal se v něm, nastavoval, používal...

A pak jsem se vrátil k Slackware...

Děkuji redakci root.cz za anketu a firmě Novell za cenu. A příští rok znovu.

Ya está disponible si quieres probarlo. Se han hecho muchas mejoras. Si quieres ver la lista de cambios puedes ver el anuncio oficial.

Para instalarlo en Ubuntu, debes añadir el siguiente repositorio:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/project-neon/ubuntu hardy main

Luego de actualizarte, escribe en consola:

sudo apt-get install amarok-nightly

Para instalarlo en OpenSuse, haz click en la siguiente imágen:

Recuerda que todavía está en estado Alpha, por lo tanto te podrá dar muchos errores.

This board was never certified for Linux.  It is only certified for Vista.  See URL below.  So please test under Vista.  Does this issue also occured under Vista or Winxp?

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/product/Motherboards/certification.aspx

My response:

Well, this is a replacement for a dead Intel board (a 945g that fully supported ACPI), Vista was never really up for consideration, and I'm not about to go buy a copy to find out.

The ACPI specs are there for a reason, and broken BIOS's like what is in this motherboard are the reason standard ACPI does not work, I've taken the liberty of filing the report in kernel.org, Red Hat, and Canonical's Ubuntu bug tracking systems, and posting the contents of my kernel error log on my blog, which is in the top 5 results if you Google search "Foxconn G33M" or "Foxconn G33M-s", as well as prominently in other search formats, so hopefully this will save other people from a bad purchase, and hopefully kernel.org can work around your broken BIOS in 2.6.26, as I understand that kernel is more forgiving of bad motherboards built for Windows.

I've already gotten several dozen hits on those pages, so you guys are only hurting yourselves in the long run, by using bad BIOS ROMs, as people like me are quite vocal when dealing with a bad product.

Acabei de traduzir a wiki do openSUSE sobre o uso do zypper no 11.0...

Nesta página http://pt.opensuse.org/Zypper/Uso é mostrado os diferentes comandos que o zypper possui, com exemplos!

Vejam os tópicos:

• 1 Referência Rápida
• 2 Uso Geral
• 3 Vocabulário
• 4 Comandos
  • 4.1 Exibindo a Ajuda
  • 4.2 Gerenciamento de Repositórios
    • 4.2.1 Listando os Repositórios Definidos
    • 4.2.2 Adicionando Repositórios
    • 4.2.3 Atualizando Repositórios
    • 4.2.4 Removendo Repositórios
    • 4.2.5 Modificando Repositórios
    • 4.2.6 Renomeando Repositórios
  • 4.3 Exportar/Importar
  • 4.4 Gerenciamento de Pacotes
    • 4.4.1 Instalando Pacotes
    • 4.4.2 Removendo Pacotes
    • 4.4.3 Pacotes Fonte e Dependências de Compilação
    • 4.4.4 Atualizando Pacotes
  • 4.5 Pesquisa
    • 4.5.1 Pesquisando por Pacotes
    • 4.5.2 Obtendo Informações sobre Pacotes
    • 4.5.3 Dependências
    • 4.5.4 Outras Pesquisas
  • 4.6 Travas de Pacotes
  • 4.7 Utilitários
    • 4.7.1 Verificar Dependências
    • 4.7.2 Instalar Pacotes Novos Recomendados
  • 4.8 Gerenciamento de Atualizações
    • 4.8.1 Listando as Atualizações
    • 4.8.2 Aplicando as Correções
    • 4.8.3 Listando as Correções
    • 4.8.4 Verificando por Correções
    • 4.8.5 Obtendo Informações sobre as Correções
• 5 Usando o Zypper em Scripts e Aplicativos
  • 5.1 Modo Não Interativo
  • 5.2 Modo sem Verificação GPG
  • 5.3 Concordar Automaticamente com as Licenças
  • 5.4 Saída Silenciosa
  • 5.5 Saída XML
  • 5.6 Prompts
    • 5.6.1 Prompts relacionados ao GPG
    • 5.6.2 Outros Prompts
• 6 Compatibilidade com o Rug

abraços

fonte: http://pt.opensuse.org/Zypper/Uso

Pois bem visto que muitos tem esta difícil tarefa de escolha vou tentar ajudar com meus humildes conhecimentos.

Opensuse

Apesar de não ser muito conhecido aqui no Brasil o opensuse é muito utilizado lá fora, e ainda por cima contém um grande conteúdo em documentação em português, a lista de repositórios é muito extensa e contém tudo oque um usuário precisa.

Conta com comunidades espalhadas ao redor do mundo, inclusive no brasil www.susebr.org que dispõe de muitos tópicos e caso precise de ajuda também.

A instalação é muito simples auto-explicativa e não deixa oportunidade para dúvidas fazendo com que qualquer usuário recém chegado consiga instalar.

O Opensuse é uma ótima opção para quem nunca utilizou linux e deseja ter um primeiro contato. No próximo post irei detalhar a configuração dele para os usuários mais avançados.

Se você acabou de instalar o Compiz-Fusion e percebeu que os players de vídeo passam o som mais estão sem imagem esse post é pra você.

Aqui vou ensinar a configurar os mais utilizados players de video do Linux: GStreamer, VLC, Mplayer e RealPlayer.

Gstreamer

Este é o vídeo player padrão no Ubuntu e na maioria das distros que utilizam o Gnome por default. no Ubuntu ele é utilizado através do Totem. para configurar corretamente o Totem, faremos os seguintes passos:

Iniciar o  (você pode fazer isso pelo terminal ou utilizando o comando Alt + F2).

Vá para a aba Vídeo. Em configuração padrão de Saída, use o Plugin, X Window System (No Xv). Clique no botão de Test e verifique se está funcionando. Feche a janela.

Mplayer

Abra o Mplayer.

Clique com o botão direto do mouse na janela de vídeo e selecione Preferências.

Vá para a aba Vídeo. Nela selecione na lista o driver X11 ( XImage/Shm ).

Clique em OK para salvar, reinicie a aplicação.

VLC

RealPlayer

Abra o RealPlayer.

Vá para Configurações -> Preferências...

Vá para a aba Hardware.

desmarque UseXVideo.

Reinicie o RealPlayer.

Espero ter ajudado qualquer duvida não hesitem em comentar

Tutorial Level: Beginner

When listening to music, getting a notice that specific songs cannot be listened to due to restricted formats can become frustrating very quickly. The good news is that OpenSUSE has a package that un-restricts many of the most popular music formats. Although there is not much to installing this package, there are two options to select, depending on which Desktop Environment you use. There is a package for Gnome and another for KDE. Below are links for the 1-Click Installers for both the Gnome and KDE version of the Restricted Multimedia Formats package. Note that these packages are for version 11.0 of OpenSUSE.

Gnome Desktops

KDE Desktops

Due to the nature of the 1-Click Installer, the installation process for this package is the easiest part. Simply follow step-by-step what YaST2 suggests for your and provide the information needed, and the package installer will do the rest. Once you have completed the installation, you will be able to listen to formats such as MP3, MPEG-4 and many others! Although a very simple tutorial, this package can make your music experience in OpenSUSE much smoother and more enjoyable!

]]> http://jaysonrowe.wordpress.com/?p=272 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:42:35 +0000 jaysonrowe http://jaysonrowe.wordpress.com/?p=272 A while back I posted a couple of posts regarding the "Darklooks" theme included in the "gnome-themes-extras" package, but I found Darklooks to be just a bit too dark for me, and unusable even with modification. I then set out to create a "green" theme to match openSUSE's colors, and I came up with this, but I then discovered that it mucked w/ my Computer icon on the Main Menu wich caused an inconsistent look in the UI, and being as anally retentive as I am I could have that at all!

Yesterday I remembered Jakub 'jimmac' Steiner's Darkilouche theme. I had used Darkilouche back in my Ubuntu days, but I remembered that Jakub actually was an openSUSE user and being a UI and Icon designer I thought perhaps he'd taken that pesky Computer icon into account. I'm not sure if he had taken it into account or not, but it did not exhibit that problem I encountered using the other themes - it looked as it should.

I loaded it up and used it for a couple of days, but I simply couldn't take the Orange any longer (sorry jimmac), so I modified it to use the same #7AA052 I used in my "Green Theme" - and I think I've found what I was looking for finally!

Judge for yourself!

I found that things worked better once I removed all the bits of KDE4 that I could find and ended up installing some gnome bits automatically chosen by the package manager. I also installed esound since I was having sound server issues with just alsa.

I'm using entrance even though I have mouse cursor issues (it's not there) at the login screen. While it isn't a priority problem and affecting usage, I do intend on figuring out why this is happening.

dmitry_serpokryl is the person responsible for the the metapackage for opensuse 11.0 and I think he did a great job. He's also created an opensuse E17 live cd which he calls "SOAD" (Suse On Active Diet) which I intend on trying in the near future.

I had heard of the Liberation fonts developed by Red Hat a while back, and I saw they were available in the openSUSE repositories so I decided to install the package and give them a try. I'm extremely pleased with what I found - they render very nicely, and I find them to be great replacements for the core MS fonts (I may even install them on my Windows Systems as well!)

Here's a quote with more info from RedHat.com:

Today Red Hat announced the public release of these fonts under the trademark LIBERATION at the Red Hat Summit. There are three sets, Sans (a substitute for Arial, Albany, Helvetica, Nimbus Sans L, and Bitstream Vera Sans), Serif (a substitute for Times New Roman, Thorndale, Nimbus Roman, and Bitstream Vera Serif) and Mono (a substitute for Courier New, Cumberland, Courier, Nimbus Mono L, and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono). In the meantime, the fonts are now available for you to install.

For those running Red Hat Enterprise Linux and/or Fedora systems and wanting the fonts in RPM format to install, you can get them through your RHN service.

For those running any other system and simply wanting the fonts in native .ttf format, get them here.

You are free to use these fonts on any system you would like. You are free to redistribute them under the GPL+exception license found in the download. Using these fonts does not subject your documents to the GPL, it liberates them from any proprietary claim. Once you have installed these fonts, I encourage you to make them your default in Thunderbird, FireFox, and Open Office. Heck, for that matter make them your default in Microsoft Office, in Microsoft Windows, in Apple OSX, in anything your would like. In many applications you can set Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New to convert to these fonts.

This is just one way for Red Hat to say thank you to all our friends in the open source community for all you have done to make us successful.

Here is a screenshot (edited to one desktop) to give you an idea of how nicely they render:

Si bajaron el DVD.

http://www.kdeblog.com/tutorial-como-instalar-opensuse-11.html

http://www.laconsolablog.com/instalar-distribuciones-linux/instalar-opensuse/

Si bajaron el CD con gnome.

http://portallinux.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/tutorial-instalando-opensuse-11-gnome/

]]> http://gunjanpatidar.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/a-day-with-opensuse-110/ Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:53:00 +0000 gunjan2307 http://gunjanpatidar.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/a-day-with-opensuse-110/
Yesterday I installed openSUSE 11.0 on my PC. I've been using openSUSE as my primary OS since SUSE linux 9.0 and I must admit this one is a really impressive improvement over the 10.x and previous versions. Installation is blazing fast, artwork is really nice(although green is not my taste :), configuration is simple, Hardware detection is as good as it has always been. Still I believe we can use some more improvement especially with partitioning and stuff which drives Windows users running like crazy. Although openSUSE does a really good job at guessing a partition setup, loosing ones data while installing linux for the first time is good enough to scare people away for life (I've been through it ;)
Apart from installation, a big big improvement is with the package management stack. openSUSE has finally stopped refreshing repositories every time. software installation, dependency resolution, package grouping all have seen lots of improvement. I've installed KDE 4 as my desktop environment and openSUSE people have done a great job with it too. The version of KDE shipped with openSUSE 11.0 is 4.0.4. Although earlier I was using (almost) 4.1 from trunk and would be soon building back the trunk coz after having a taste of 4.1 its very difficult to live with 4.0. For people who have not seen it, KDE 4.1 would be really something to look for. Its much more stable, even more eye candy and some more solid functionalities. AIGLX is enabled by default with openSUSE 11.0. This helps a lot to easily enable desktop effects in KDE4 and enjoy the eye candy. One can of course enable Xgl and compiz instead if they like to.

Alright so much for the praising but there were some things I had to change. The first was firefox. openSUSE 11.0 shipped with firefox3 beta 5 which was giving me trouble from the start. Every few minutes it would freeze and become non responsive for a few seconds. Also some of my favorite extensions like firebug did not work with it. So, I decided to upgrade to firefox final (3.0.1).
There's no official upgrade to final version and installing from rpm's can drown you into dependency hell. The easiest way to upgrade is:
1. download the linux tarball from the firefox website
2. extract the package [tar -xf (eg. tar -xf /home/gunjan/downlods/firefox-3.0.1.tar.bz2)]
3. as root move all the contents of '/usr/lib/firefox' to say '/usr/lib/firefox/backup'
4. copy all the contents from the new firefox package to /usr/lib/firefox
5. sudo rm /usr/bin/firefox
6. sudo ln -s /usr/bin/firefox /usr/lib/firefox/firefox

All your settings, passwords and bookmarks are retained and you don't need to change anything with the menus.

The other thing was the lack of mp3 support in openSUSE's xine-lib. My Amarok gives a very bad audio quality with the GStreamer/Yuapp engine and so I wanted to use xine engine. so I installed amarok-xine 1.4.9 rpm and build xine-lib 1.1.14. Now I can play mp3 wma real etc files with amarok :)

Anyway, let's get back to the point of the post. As we all (or should all) know, AMD purchased ATi sometime back. On the linux front, thanks to an agreement with novell, ati has been steadily releasing documentation to opensource devs containing specifications for ati cards. A wise man once said, why continue with your shoddy coding when you can get people to support your crap for free?

Radeonhd, which is the brainchild of this whole documentation releasement, is coming along quite nicely. Owners of the x1000 and newer ati cards running linux can now rejoice and download the driver from their nearest distro repository. You can check out the website here.

Now, what about the tried and true radeon driver? The driver that has been chugging along since time immemorial? Since before such things as manufacturer provided documentation existed? How does it compare to the proprietary driver nowadays? It is slowly incorporating some stuff gleaned from ati's documentation.

I haven't had the luxury to test out the radeonhd driver since I happen to own a laptop containing the x700 mobility radeon. As any linux user with an ati card knows, the past few years have brought nothing but disappointments with each new fglrx release. Yes, ati was pulling itself together. Yes, the fglrx driver was able to achieve decent frames per second. However, each new release fixed one or two things and broke 5 more. The important bugs, such as, oh I don't know, problems with compiz/beryl, corruptions on certain cards, incompatibility with 3D rendering, etc, took several releases cycles before they got fixed, if they ever got fixed. Some people are still using drivers released over a year ago because everything after that breaks their system terribly. Check out the forums at phoronix for discussions/complaints on each new fglrx release. Such things make one wonder if the ati linux dev team is really just one person. I mean, if a group of people are getting paid to improve the linux driver, only major incompetence would explain how little gets done every month.

I admit it, I got pretty frustrated with fglrx for the reasons listed above. I couldn't play videos with some driver releases, compiz would slow to a crawl with others. Several just never compiled because ati was often very late on supporting newer kernels and patches weren't always available. Seriously, the kernel major release cycles takes months. That's plenty of time to add support. If you still don't support a major release kernel 3 months after it was released, WTH?

While doing beta testing for opensuse 11.0 + kde 4.0, I had removed the fglrx driver sometime before and never bothered to reinstall it. I spent three or so months using a video driver that just worked. Glxgears was returning ~2800 FPS. I didn't play many games during that time, but the ones I played worked perfectly. Compiz was disabled, as I wanted to get more acquainted with kde 4's desktop effects. When I finally installed the opensuse 11.0 GM, I decided it was time to install fglrx for compizness.

The install went smoothly, with zero xorg.conf tweaking on my part, thanks to opensuse 11.0 enabling AIGLX whenever fglrx is installed. I just added the ati community repo in yast and off I went. The most configuration I had to do was run sax which I did more out of habit than anything else.

With the smooth install, I foresaw sunny skies ahead. The laptop ran well for most of the first day after the new install, but the X server froze later in the evening. I assumed this was a minor glitch on the somewhat buggy .0 release. I restarted and all was well with the world. Until the next day that is. X froze multiple times in a row. Since I had been running factory up until the previous day without any glitches, I figured I may need to update the default kde 4 to factory. I did. Sunny skies returned. For one more day at least. Every day after that, I had to update kde 4, otherwise my X would freeze. Strange isn't it? On the days when kde 4 factory didn't get an update, I experienced random freezes, which occured every few minutes until I updated kde 4. Oh yeah, all 3D stuff had terrible flickering. After a couple kde 4 upgrades, games like tremulous, glest, planeshift and sauerbraten which had been just barely tolerable initially, became completely unplayable.

I started pondering what else was different between my beta system and my current system. Well, I certainly wasn't updating my system to factory (been there, done that when I needed to, got the tshirt). The only other difference was the video driver. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what driver I had been using on the beta install. The opensource radeon driver has given me a black screen ever since opensuse 10.3. I tried it anyway, with the same result. The radeonhd driver didn't support my card. I tried it anyway, but no luck either. I then tried vesa.... yes, vesa. No surprise, the rendering was slow as molasses.

I even tried installing fglrx, but without configuring it with sax, and on a kernel that it couldn't compile on. That gave me some pretty interesting results. 2D stuff worked fine, but 3D and compiz died a horrible death. Xorg logs showed parts of the fglrx driver were used for certain things, but glxinfo showed SGI as the glx vendor. Hmm.

So what the hell had I been using during those months of zero hassle? I stumbled on the answer by mistake. While futzing around with dependencies for fglrx in yast, I accidentally enabled both ati-fglrxG01-kmp-default as well as x11-video-fglrxG01 for removal. I also blocked the other fglrx related drivers, which naturally kept wanting to install. Surprise surprise, my laptop booted fine. Glxinfo gave me about 2600 FPS and damn, 3D games looked great. When I checked my xorg.conf, lo and behold, I was using the radeon driver. Just to be sure I was seeing things right, I installed x11-video-fglrxG01. The next X start gave me a black screen.

It's been a longish post. Good thing I'm winding down. The point of this post was simply to put it out there that the radeon driver is now more usable than the fglrx driver. The fglrx driver only trumps the radeon driver in FPS under glxgears (~4400 vs 2800 on my system). However, none of my 3D applications showed a drop in FPS and none of them flicker (note that on planeshift, fullscreen is required to avoid some flickering  when using the radeon driver). The only problem I have encountered with the radeon driver is that if I load a game after resuming from suspend or after the laptop has been on for several hours, X is highly likely to freeze at some point. This doesn't happen after a clean boot. Oh yeah, did I mention compiz works? It does, and with no hits to speed.

Goodbye cruel fglrx world. You treated me and mine as an afterthought, so here I return the favor. I'll keep an eye on that front, but I'm done using the driver, unless a revolutionary release appears.

For those that feel they need the fglrx driver to get usable 3D or whatever, it's about time to check out the radeon driver if your card is supported. Of course, as with anything, performance is system dependent, so your mileage may vary. Just don't forget to remove everything related to fglrx before you switch to radeon, especially if using a mobility radeon card.

1. open yast, Select Software->Software Repositories

2. In the opened window click on Add (bottom left)

3. Select media type as 'Local ISO image', click next

4. Give your repository a name and Browse to ISO image, click next, Accept the License Agreement

5. You may now disable the cd/dvd by selecting the corresponding entry and unchecking the 'Enabled' checkbox

That's all. no more need to insert the disk for software installation.