I’m writing an article series about : “Remastering openSUSE : How to Build your own openSUSE Based Distro” as part of my presentation at Indonesian openSUSE Community monthly meeting [0] last week. The article based on my experience while making openSUSE 11.0 KDE 3.5+Multimedia Support LiveDVD (beware with it’s restricted media if you want to rebuild this. I make it as part of my presentation tutorial).

I’ve posted 2 article for now, “Kiwi as imaging system and how to install it on openSUSE”[1] and “How to build openSUSE Minimal System LiveCD” [2] and currently writing the third article “How to make openSUSE 11.0 KDE 3.5 LiveCD”

[0] : http://vavai.net/2008/10/09/indonesian-opensuse-community-monthly-meeting-10/
[1] : http://vavai.net/2008/10/15/remastering-opensuse-how-to-build-your-own-opensuse-based-distro/
[2] : http://vavai.net/2008/10/15/how-to-build-opensuse-minimal-system-livecd/

It was not a completed tutorial but I hope it could helped you for making openSUSE with your own specification. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Note : The term “Remastering” would not correct either, because I simply described how to make openSUSE with our specified configuration and application without change any openSUSE branding, splash screen or another openSUSE trademark.

One of the important features that are needed on a mail server is archiving, the backup copy of all incoming and outgoing mail.

Although we can do the backup process periodically for every account, archiving more better and efficient because we have all of copy email which 100% similar with the original.

I’m writing a simple tutorial and it’s impact in my personal blog. Click here to go to the article.

Indonesian openSUSE community website built on July 23, 2007 and serve as the first place for discussion, finding tutorial and supporting openSUSE fans.

Google PageRank trend is consistent with the increase in the number of users of openSUSE (user who install openSUSE in their PC or laptop) in Indonesia and in tune with the increasing number of forums and mailing lists user. It’s also consistent with the frequency of users who accessing the page tutorial on website.

Hopefully PR 6 can be the extra spirit to continue the improvement of the openSUSE community in Indonesia. We hope to provide best support for users of openSUSE and it’s variants distro.

Our next project is increasing tutorial page and encourage the member to create their personal blog within openSUSE blogger community. We hope to see more and more openSUSE related articles, with English or Indonesian or another language.

I’m really appreciated for everyone who take the opportunity as openSUSE board candidate. It should be a great job.  All of openSUSE board candidate have technical or supporting background, active in the community and show their great effort and participation in the past.

One of openSUSE board candidate is Pascal Bleser (well known as yaloki on IRC). I have a nice discussion by IRC and by mail with him and get a good response. He is an incumbent of openSUSE board, means that he was currently openSUSE board member with AJ, Coolo, Federico and Francis.

I know he has good technically background (describing zypper stuff for about 1 hour ), active on FOSDEM, good dad for his baby (look at the photos ) and don’t forget, he has been actively on merging and joining Packman repositories for openSUSE.

I don’t see any reason why I could not choose him as openSUSE member for next period. With his experience as first openSUSE board member; his technically background; his connection to another person in various open source project; and his good position to understand relation between Novell and the community, he would be the best choice for next openSUSE member.

Vote and campaign for Pascal Bleser as openSUSE Board member !

Royal Pingdom has issued an article about “Linux Distribution Popularity Across the Globe”. They have included eight common Linux distributions in their survey: Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Red Hat, Mandriva, Slackware and Gentoo and used Google Insights for Search, for determining the results.

Below is the summary from their results :

• Ubuntu is most popular in Italy and Cuba.
• OpenSUSE is most popular in Russia and the Czech Republic.
• Red Hat is most popular in Bangladesh and Nepal.
• Debian is most popular in Cuba.
• Cuba is in the top five (interest-wise) of three of the eight distributions in this survey.
• Indonesia is in the top five of four of the distributions.
• Russia and the Czech Republic are in the top five of five of the distributions.
• The United States is not in the top five of any of the distributions.

There is an interesting result, Rusia, Czech and Moldova beating Germany about openSUSE popularity . Oh, of course this is not complete survey, and it is not the weakness of openSUSE itself. In the other side, the survey show us that openSUSE gained much popularity in outside Germany.

Another interesting result, congratulation for Indonesian openSUSE Community, Indonesia is in top five (number #5 of 5) of openSUSE popularity in the world and Indonesian openSUSE Community contributed in the survey results to make Indonesia as top five of four of the distributions.

Please navigate to the survey results for another interesting results and detail statictics.

How to make it works ?

1. Disable or blacklist ath5k driver by add the blacklist ath5k to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
2. Open konsole or terminal
3. Install the driver

su
zypper in kernel-source make gcc gcc-c++
wget -c http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz
tar -zxvf madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz
cd madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007
make
make install
modprobe ath_pci
reboot


After reboot, you should be configure the wifi from YAST | Network Devices | Network Settings

How to add the similar function to KDE 4 so we could compress some file or folder, or extract a zip file both in Dolphin and Konqueror ? Here is the tips :

1. Download the plugin here :
   http://www.kde-apps.org/content/download.php?content=84206&id=1&tan=96989998
2. Open konsole / terminal
3. Extract the plugin
4. Go to the extract folder
5. Copy all of .desktop file into /usr/share/kde4/services/ServiceMenus
6. Copy the content of script folder into /usr/bin
7. Test with dolphin or kde4

The above tips will make a system wide configuration. If you wish to make a local changes, just execute INSTALL_1.0.sh on the extract folder.

NOTE : The programs p7zip, bunzip2, bzip2, gzip, rar, unrar, tar, zip and unzip must be installed.

I don’t know if the function will be added into KDE 4.1 by default, but I hope so

Beside the planning, I also read some comments that noticed me with problem regarding openSUSE LiveUSB tutorial. The tutorial used openSUSE 11.0 RC1 and the modified initrd as noticed on the tutorial doesn’t fit with the GM version.

I have updated the initrdud that *should be*  applied with openSUSE 11.0 GM. I got it succeeded with my 2 GB USB Flash Disk. The overall process to make openSUSE 11.0 GM LiveUSB are same as described on the previous tutorial with RC1. The different thing is initrdud file.

Download the modified initrd file (called initrdud) from this link.

How to Modify the Initrd

Initrd modification needed to add nls_cp437.ko, module for mount vfat partition that commonly used by USB flash disk.

1. Preparing your LiveUSB ISO. In this example, I used openSUSE-11.0-KDE4-LiveCD-i386.iso. Change with your downloaded LiveCD ISO instead
2. Preparing, Extract and update the initrd

su
mkdir unpacked
mkdir /mnt/iso
mkdir /mnt/squash
mount -o loop openSUSE-11.0-KDE4-LiveCD-i386.iso /mnt/iso/
cd unpacked
gzip -dc /mnt/iso/boot/i386/loader/initrd | cpio -i
mount -o loop /mnt/iso/openSUSE-*read-only.* /mnt/squash/
cp /mnt/squash/lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/nls/nls_cp437.ko lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/nls/
cp /mnt/squash/lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/nls/nls_iso8859-1.ko lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/nls/
cp -r /mnt/squash/lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/vfat lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/
cp -r /mnt/squash/lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/fat lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/


3. Edit the linuxrc file and change /bin/sh on top of the file with /bin/sh -x. This used for verbose option while boot, every command will be display before executed so if there is a problem, it will more easier to resolve.
4. Modify the include file and change (replace) the function CDDevice with below code. This will change LiveCD to LiveUSB.

function CDDevice {
	# /.../
	# changed this function so that it finds config.isoclient on vfat disks, e.g. USB drives
	# ----
	find /lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/nls/nls* -exec insmod {} \; # needed for vfat filesystem
        find /lib/modules/*/kernel/fs/*fat/*.ko -exec insmod {} \; # needed for vfat filesystem
        insmod /lib/modules/*/kernel/drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.ko # needed for USB
	sleep 5 # fixme; do this in a proper way
	cddevs=`/usr/sbin/hwinfo --disk | grep sd | grep "Device File:" | cut -f2 -d: | cut -f2 -d " "` # looks for disks instead of CDs
	echo cddevs $cddevs
	for i in $cddevs;do
		i=$i"1" # fixme; looks on the first partition only
		echo i $i
		if [ -b $i ];then
			test -z $cddev && cddev=$i || cddev=$cddev:$i
			echo cddev $cddev
		fi
	done
	if [ -z $cddev ]; then
		systemException \
			"Failed to detect CD drive !" \
		"reboot"
	fi
}

5. Repack the initrd. We will place the initrdud in root of cureent folder :

find . | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -9 > ../initrdud

Hope the above process solve the problem while making openSUSE 11.0 GM LiveUSB. Don’t forget to place a comment if you got any problem regarding this tutorial.

You could use single sign-on login with your Novell/openSUSE account. It’s also should be work with your existing account at existing forums but I didn’t try it ;-), so, please try to login before create another new account.

Thanks for all of Novell staff and openSUSE community members who make the dream come true. Quoting what Michael said last 3 month : “a big gain for the whole openSUSE Community !”

Last week, me and 2 Indonesian openSUSE members : Bonnie Kurniawan & M Herry Nurdin holds a training session at Grha Pemuda & Olah Raga (Youth Fellow & Sports Building), State Ministry for Youth Affairs and Sports of the Republic of Indonesia, Senayan, Jakarta.

Training focused on openSUSE server function and administration, with an overview about openSUSE 11.0 features and capability. There are totals 20 audiences on first and second day, and 40 audiences on third day, came from sub dept of State Ministry for Youth Affairs and Sports and they will administer openSUSE server on their office. Most of the audiences are newbie for Linux but they have no problem with openSUSE administration. They looks a quite bit worried when we got an introduction about Command Line Interface, but after a few minutes, they’re enjoy the training.

Training taking full 3 days to complete, started on June 07 2008 until June 09, 2008. I gave a presentation and practical guide for openSUSE installation (hey, it’s pretty nice to show off openSUSE installation process. It needs a few step only, with yes, no and next ), domain controller and active directory with samba, Apache Web Server and Virtual Host and an introduction about YAST usability.

I have a small discussion about Indonesian openSUSE community with Edy Purwanto, IT administrator for State Ministry for Youth Affairs and Sports office, and he promised to helped us setting up and provide openSUSE mirror by using dedicated server and dedicated internet access in his office. Well, it’s a good news for upcoming openSUSE 11.0 release on June 19, 2008. We will set up this server for ISO image and repository download services.

We also distributed openSUSE 11.0 RC1 free CD and DVD plus a set of tutorial for the audiences and told them to contact us if they have any problem with openSUSE implementation at their office units.