OpenSuSE 11.2 has a number of nice features and update, although you may find some of the included applications a bit behind. For example, the included GNOME in 11.2 is 2.28, whereas Ubuntu 10.04 released with GNOME 2.3. Of course OpenSuSE is due for an update itself. 11.2 was released in November 2009. The good news? 11.3 is due to be released in July, which is one of the reasons I wanted to focus on OpenSuSE first – to get everyone excited about this distribution in time for its newest release.

In this article I am going to highlight some of the things that make OpenSuSE unique and why you should give it a try.

Build it

One of the coolest aspects of OpenSuSE is the Build Service. With this service you can build your own, unique distribution based on OpenSuSE. I’ve done this and it works really well. I will warn you, it does take some time and you will find yourself obsessing over the smallest detail. Why? Because you can. You can decide what packages are included, you can even set the backgrounds for boot up, splash screen, and desktop wallpaper. This service alone is worth the price of admission.

YaST

Figure 1

Yet Another Setup Tool is the control center for OpenSuSE. YaST has been around for a long, long time and with good reason – it’s one of the finest control centers you will find in an operating system. When you open YaST (see Figure 1) you will notice it is laid out in a two-pane layout with the left pane being categories and the right pane being category entries. You will not find a distribution with a more robust control center than YaST. I always look at YaST like the Webmin for the desktop. The 11.2 YaST even includes a system backup tool and a restoration tool. I will discuss these two tools in later articles. In some cases you will find entries in YaST that do not effect your installation. For example, the YaST I am using includes a TV card entry. I do not have a TV card. You get the idea.

A pseudo welcome screen

Take a look at Figure 1. In the only KDE plasmoid on the desktop OpenSuSE includes a link for both the OpenSuSE website as well as online help. This is as close to a “welcome screen” as you will see in a Linux distribution. I have been harping on this topic for a while now (and I will until something happens). Linux distributions need a “welcome screen” similar to what Windows offers upon first boot. This is just something that will point new users to an introduction to Linux, to their distribution, and to help. For users that don’t need it, they can just uncheck a box and it won’t show up again. But for new users, this is a must-have. OpenSuSE at least is smart enough to add two of these items in a KDE 4 plasmoid. Smart thinking.

Who should use OpenSuSE?

OpenSuSE is a solid Linux distribution that should be used by anyone who longs for a rock solid desktop distribution but wants to be able to tinker as much and as often as they like. Because of this, OpenSuSE opens itself up to a wide range of users – from new users to seasoned veterans. And with that build service – anyone can enjoy their very own special flavor of OpenSuSE. If you have been using Windows for a long, long time and you think it’s time to migrate to Linux, download the KDE flavor of OpenSuSE. You will feel at home enough with the desktop (especially Vista/7 users) that the Land of Linux won’t seem so foreign. And if you think of YaST as the Control Panel – you’re good to go.

Now let’s begin a little journey with OpenSuSE and discover some of it’s pieces and parts.

Normally on an Elive Compiz upgrade it is highly recommended you start from scratch and NOT upgrade. So I was set on backing up everything and re-installing. So I sat about backing everything up. While my backup was running I navigated to the Elive Compiz page and eventually discovered that the dev team has finally merged Elive and Elive Compiz into one CD! This is definitely good news because the updates will now be parallel. But how does this change the install/update process? Let’s find out.

Once the backups were completed, and safely moved to an external drive, it was time to burn the Elive ISO onto CD and see how well the Live version does. I figured if the live version of the Elive had Ecomorph running as smoothly as the dedicated version, this was a no-brainer. So I popped in the CD and rebooted the machine. What surprised me was once the live CD was booted, and I went to run the installation, I was asked if I wanted to do an upgrade. I figured, since I was going to be doing a fresh installation, I should throw caution to the wind and see how it would go if I went ahead with the upgrade. I did and, surprisingly enough, all went smoothly. There were a few minor glitches – I had to re-install OpenOffice and a few other packages, but outside of that I was shocked that what was an Elive Compiz installation managed to upgrade to a well running Elive distribution. But what about Compiz (aka Ecomorph in Elive land)? Simple. I had to enable it. Let’s see how.

Enabling Ecomorph

Figure 1

The first thing you have to do is to load the Ecomorph module. To do this left mouse click anywhere on the desktop to bring up the main menu. From that menu select Settings and then select Modules. When the new window opens (see Figure 1) scroll down on the left pane until you see the Ecomorph module. Select Ecomorph and then click the Load Module button.

When the module is loaded you can close out the Module Settings window. Now you need to start Ecomorph. To start the Ecomorph module left click the desktop again and select the Settings sub-menu. From the Settings sub-menu select Ecomorph.

From the Ecomorph Settings window (see

Figure 2

Figure 2) all you need to do is click the Start Ecomorph button. Your screen might flash or flicker and then Ecomorph will be running. You now have an Elive distribution running with Ecomorph loaded. Not only are you back where you were with Elive Compiz, but you are now better able to continue upgrading your distribution.

Final thoughts

As far as upgrading distributions is concerned I have always been a proponent of starting from scratch. But this instance of upgrading Elive has really given me pause to think twice about my stance. It is, in fact, possible to do an upgrade and have it come off with few (if any) hiccups. In my many years of using Computers I have to say that this might have been one of the smoothest, easiest upgrades I have ever done.

But always remember, when attempting an upgrade of your operating system ALWAYS back up your data.

Upon installation you might not immediately notice the improvements. They are there and eventually these improvements will impress you. So instead of you having to wade through the distribution to witness these improvements, I will highlight those that will have certain impact on the user…whether directly or indirectly.

Bluetooth Support

You might be wondering why I am starting with a feature that isn’t used by everyone. The main reason is because this is the update that might excite users (at least mobile users) the most. With the latest release not only has bluetooth support matured, but tethering support has become almost foolproof! So now that laptop can tether to your cell via usb. But the improvements don’t end there. One of the issues, prior to 12, that plagued Linux bluetooth users was battery drain. Now bluetooth services are run “on demand” so that thirty seconds after the last bluetooth device was used, the service is suspended.

Network manager improvements

Another large step forward is with the Network Manager. Although this is the best of the best Linux network management tools, it still had room for improvement. What has been improved is:

• IpV6 support.
• Better shared, static, and system-wide connection support.
• Easy to configure bluetooth tethering

Out of the box tablet support

This will come to the surprise of anyone that has had to get tablet support working with Linux. Fedora 12 will work without having to muck around with xorg.conf! Tablet pressure sensitivity, handwriting recognition, and many more features will work, out of the box! This is big news for anyone who wants to use a tablet PC with Linux.

Updates improvements

For those of you who grow more and more frustrated with the constant barrage of updates with a Fedora distribution, you will be happy to know that Fedora has made some serious improvements. First RPM now uses XZ compression (instead of gzip), so packages are smaller. Also, the Presto plugin is now enabled by default. Presto uses RPM deltas which only use files that have changed. Between XZ and deltas file downloads are considerably smaller and updating is noticeably faster.

Bug reporting

One thing to keep in mind is that Fedora is a cutting edge distribution, so bug reporting should be a task most Fedora users follow through with. Fedora 12 makes this task very simple. When an application crashes data is automatically collected (without the user having to run back traces and such). With the help of the new Abrt tool, reporting bugs is about as simple as possible. The user doesn’t even have to go to Bugzilla to report a bug!

Graphics

There have been a number of improvements for graphics with Fedora 12. One of the more important updates is the experimental drivers that give 3D support for graphics cards without the use of proprietary drivers.

Clustered Samba

Another exciting addition is the GFS2 Fedora 12 Samba allows you to  have multiple instances of smbd across different nodes of a cluster. With this you can export a gfs2 filesystem through one or more nodes in the cluster. Clustered Samba will provide high-availablity of the Samba service.

Final thoughts

This is just a taste of what Fedora 12 is brining to the Linux table. There is a veritable plethora of new features available with Fedora 12. For a complete list, take a look at this Wiki page for an all encompassing  look at the feature list.

Some of these terms might seem very basic to a few readers and some of them not so basic. It is important, however, that we are all standing on common ground and not having to “google” a term all the time. This article will not be exhaustive, it will cover a few terms. In later “Get to know Linux” articles we will cover more of these terms. Without further adieu, let’s proceed.

~/ or users’ home: This is the directory, created when you either install your operating system or create a new user (with the right arguments), that holds all of your personal data. This directory is created based on what is in the /etc/skel directory. This is the one directory your user has full permissions in. From the command line, the fastest way to get to this directory is to enter the command cd.

Kernel: This is the heart of Linux. In fact some purists will tell you that this IS Linux and everything else is nothing more than various applications built to run on top of Linux. The Linux kernel is a true preemptive multi-tasking kernel, is written in C, and is the single largest “application” on your system. Without the kernel you would not have a Linux operating system. “Back in the day” you would hear Linux users talk about “rolling their own kernel” or “compiling their own kernel”. This referred to building a kernel to meet specific needs. At one time this was almost a necessity for many users. This is not so much the case now as the modern kernel contains just about everything you would need.

Distribution: A distribution of Linux is a bundled variation of Linux. There are a number of major distributions such as: Ubuntu, Fedora, SuSE, Debian. There are also a far greater number of minor distributions: PCLinuxOS,  Linux Mint, Elive, Gentoo, etc. Each distribution has its own selling point. For example: Ubuntu is one of the best known distributions for new users. On the other hand of the spectrum, Gentoo is for highly experienced users. You will often here the term “distro” used in place of “distribution”.

Terminal, Console, or Terminal Emulator: This is where commands are entered. There are really two places this is done: In a terminal window or a Console. Often these terms are exchanged, but there is a difference. A terminal window is generally a small application (like gnome-terminal or xterm) that allows you to enter commands. The console is actually the command line version of the Linux interface. To get to what is typically called “console mode” you would either have to go to a virtual console (using <Ctrl><Alt>F1-0) or log out of X and kill your graphical log in (such as gdm). When your monitor shows nothing but your bash prompt, you are in “console mode”.

X: This term stands for X Window System. In simplest terms, X provides the graphical interface for Linux. Of course it is much more complex than that. The X Windows system alone wouldn’t offer you much functionality as X only provides the framework for the GUI. Running only X would give you a grayish screen, a cursor, and not much more. What you don’t see is that X provides the very foundation that enables your window managers and desktops to do what they do. You will often here the phrase “Log out of X” which, for the purposes of the end user, means log out of your desktop.

Package Manager: One of the key selling points for distributions is which package manager they use. A package manager is the system which applications are automatically installed, removed, and generally managed on a system.Two of the major package management systems for Linux: dpkg and rpm. The dpkg was originally for Debian systems but is now employed by Ubuntu and others as well. RPM was created for the Red Hat Linux distribution but now is used by Fedora, SuSE, and others. Each of these systems have both command line tools (such as apt and apt-get for dpkg, and yum for RPM) and GUI tools (such as gpk-application for RPM and Synaptic for dpkg).

Final thoughts

There you have a few of the terms you should be familiar with when using the Linux operating system. We will continue with more terms at a later date. If you would like to request terms to be defined (or if you would like to request a Linux topic in general), please feel free to contact me.

Not only is Revisor easy to use, it’s easy to install. But you do need to make sure you have plenty of space available on your hard drive. You are, after all, creating a a complete iso image. Or, thanks to Revisor, you might be splitting a DVD image into a CD set.

Unfortunately Revisor hasn’t reached a point (and may never) where it will be a tool that will allow you to create your own flavor of Linux (it is a Fedora tool after all). But you can customize the packages you include in your respin. You can even customize the iso itself which requires making major changes to a kickstart file (that goes beyond the scope of this article.)  But for creating a LiveCD with the most updated packages and even user-specific packages. With all of that said, let’s see how Revisor is used.

Getting and installing

Since Revisor is a Fedora tool it will be in the Fedora repositories. Installing this tool is simple. Open up a terminal, su to the root user, and issue the following command:

yum install revisor

You will have to accept the installation of the dependencies before Revisor will install. Once it is installed you can start Revisor with the command revisor. You will also find a Revisor entry in the GNOME desktop menu Applications. Look in the System Tools sub menu and you will find an entry for Revisor.

Using Revisor

Revisor is basically a wizard that walks you through the steps of creating your iso. The first screen of the wizard is just a welcome screen. On this screen click Get Started to begin.

Figure 1

The next screen (see Figure 1) requires you to choose the type of media you will be creating. There are two types: Installation media and Live media. Within each media type you can select either DVD, CD, optical, or USB (NOTE: USB will be disabled because it is still experimental.)

Once you choose your media type click Forward to take you to the next screen of the wizard. The next

Figure 2

screen requires you to make configurations and add/remove repositories for your iso image (see Figure 2).

You can use the defaults in the upper section. In the lower section you will want to select the repositories and add any third party repositories you will want. These third party repositories are required if there is software you want to include that is not standard fare for the Fedora distribution. If you do decide to add repositories you will need to know:Base URL, Mirror List, and GPG Key File. You can also choose to include/exclude any packages from the repository, as well as give the repository a name and description. Make sure you save this to configuration if you know you will be creating more respins based on this setup.

The next step in the wizard is for adding a kickstart file (should you want to use one) as well as taking care of a few advanced options regarding your kickstart file.

Figure 3

Now Revisor will load up your repositories. Once the repositories are loaded you can add or remove any packagees to be included in your respin.

Make note that you have to go through and select every package you need. This includes the base packages, networking packages, etc. If you don’t add it, it won’t be on your system.

You can also add optional packages by highlighting the category and clicking the Optional Packages button.

After you have selected all of your packages click Forward and you will see a screen that indicates how many packages and the size of the build. If you are okay with what you see click Forward which will take you to the final configuration steps. Included in these final steps are the root user password, default language, keyboard type, target architecture, and time zone. Click Foward when you have completed these options.

You are now ready to add any kernel boot parameters. Generally speaking you should be fine with the defaults. But if you know that you will need a different boot parameter, add it here.

The next screen allows you to add a network device. Don’t worry, this isn’t about adding the specific hardware. This section allows you to add an interface (such as eth0 using DHCP). Make sure you at least add one interface so networking will be enabled (especially with a Live CD).

Click Forward and you will see the Authentication window. This will be of use if you know you are going to be needing to add any particular authentication such as LDAP, SMB, Name Switch Cache, NIS, etc. If you do not need any authentication click Foward to move on to the Firewall configuration.

Figure 4

In this window you can set up a default firewall. This section should not be overlooked. If you are creating a respin of Fedora you want to keep security in mind, so make sure you aren’t creating a wide-open respin for people to install.

Figure 4 shows the firewall setup window. As you can see you can set this up to allow specific services through. Choose wisely. Click Forward when you are finished to take you to the X Windows configuration. In this window you are going to set up much of X including which graphical environment starts up by default. You can also set up the display options as well.

Complete this section, click Forward, and you will find yourself on the user customization. Here you can add a user to the respin. If you add a user you can set it up to automatically log in with this user.

That’s the last step. Once you click Foward here Revisor will set out to create your respin, which might include a lot of downloading. This final step can take quite some time, depending upon how many packages you have included.

Once Revisor has completed you will find your iso image in the destination directory you configured during the setup process. Burn that iso with your favorite burning software and you now have your very own respin of Fedora Linux!

Some of these improvements will be very obvious to the users and some of them will not. In this article I will detail the major changes so you can decide if this update is for you.

Ext4

This will be the first release to support the extension 4 file system. This support is option (as 9.04 will default to ext3). The biggest advantage to ext4 is the support for larger volumes (up to 1 exabyte) and larger files (16 terabytes). There are other improvements that ext4 regarding allocation. Both pre-allocation and delayed allocation have been added. These improvements deal with how space is allocated for files. The former will boost performance for systems like streaming media and databases. The latter will improve fragmentation.

Depending upon user feedback, ext4 may become the default in 9.10.

Cloud computing

With the release of 9.04, cloud computing will become much easier with the help of Eucalyptus. This application will allow you to test and deploy your own clouds matching Amazon EC2 API.

GNOME 2.26.0

The latest release of GNOME will bring some positive changes to the desktop. The Brasero CD burning utility will bring probably the easiest CD burning ever to the Linux desktop. The latest GNOME will also be able to handle multiple monitors much better thanks to gnome-display-properties.

X.org

Probably the one issue that will excite people the most is that a number of card drivers have been transitioned to free. Also many improvements to the ATI drivers as well. One important improvement here is the use of EXA acceleration. One 3D bug that caught me off guard was a mismatch between the kernel and fglrx that rendered 3D non-existent for NVidia drivers…this has been fixed. 3D performance in 9.04 should be greatly improved for all supported video chip sets.

Boot time

Ubuntu is slowly creeping toward its promise of a 20 second boot time. I have actually seen Ubuntu 9.04 (with a solid state hard drive) boot up in 17.4 seconds. Of course the solid state drive is an unfair advantage over most mortal computers. But 17.4 seconds! Ubuntu is doing something right with their boot process.

Kernel

A number of kernel bug fixes have been applied. Particular to this release are numerous USB fixes, PCI subsystem fixes, and firewire fixes. These improvements will be a real boost to multimedia usage on Linux.

More architecture support

As of 9.04 ubuntu will now support ARM processors. This will be a large step in further gaining ground in the netbook market. This is also significant with Freescale releasing a sub-$200.00 ARM-based netbook in the near future.

Overall

Ubuntu has been called on one major issue: Performance. A drastic decline in performance has been noticed from 7.04 to 8.10. This has been one of the major focal points for the Ubuntu development team. To resolve this issue Ubuntu has focused their efforts on a kernel and process level. Hopefully this will result in serious improvements in performance and reliability.

It is my feeling? that this release will be a typical .04 Ubuntu release with a few areas that will very possibly draw in non-Linux users. In particular the file system size limitations and the boot times will draw a more tech-savvy crowd (especially to the server release) and the drastic 3D improvements will draw more end users in.

The most important choice for a 9.04 installation will be to use ext4 or not. If you are installing on a production machine you should probably avoid this file system. But I wouldn’t hestitate to install 9.04 with the ext 4 file system on SOME machine – just to see how much it improves over all performance.

I haven’t actually purchased any of their product although I have tried the free version of ObjectDock and played Sins of a Solar Empire. Why I found this I have no idea, but just a few weeks ago the annual StarDock customer report came out and for some reason I decided to read it, you can download it here.

The report is short and concise and written by StarDock CEO Brad Wardell, normally this is the last kind of document I would waste my time reading, but If you do take a look I think you’ll see why. Brad Wardell provides an overview of everything StarDock had achieved over the past year and provides a frank and honest assessment of their strengths, weaknesses and future plans.

Even though I don’t have an interest as such in StarDock myself it was great to see a company so open and honest with their customers and without any feeling of PR bulldust.

The other thing which interested me is StarDock’s new Impulse software distribution system which I think it brilliant, although it does need a lot of work done such as considerably more content and some stability improvements.

If you take a look at Impulse you’ll see the kind of modern, internet focused software distribution application that Microsoft should be providing with their Windows Marketplace and Digital locker. I won’t go into any detail but I recommend you checking it out just for interest sake, their really isn’t much content at this point but the Customer report outlines plans to really improve on that over the next year.

All the software products are either open source or freeware which have been added with permission of the author of the product. You might know most of the products already but it is still worth checking out for the occasional program that one does not know. Take a look at the list of software that has been included so far. Each contains a link to the developers homepage which is an alternative method to download them.

It is kinda strange that some games have made it into the final distribution, not sure about the motivation to add them to the package. It is nevertheless a great compilation, I found some tools that I have not heard about (yet) and which I will review once I find the time to do so.

The website displays more than one result, showing the best match at the top. It has a small paragraph explaining the distribution and a link to the homepage. It sometimes lists distributions that miss one of the parameters and this parameter is listed in the paragraph then.

The distribution is perfect for older computers, I don´t think lots of people are using computers that do not meet the minimum specs. Should run fine on every Pentium or AMD cpu with 16 or more ram. Has also the ability to run fully in ram, you only need 128 megs for this feature. Check it out, its worth a try.