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Archive for March, 2010

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Annuncing KIWI-LTSP package updates

March 31st, 2010 by

Hello Community

openSUSE packages are updated to use the latest LTSP. Here are the highlights of this release:

* LTSP 5.2.1
* LDM 2.1.1
* LTSPFS 0.6.0
* kiwi-ltsp-prebuilt 0.8.2
* kiwi-ltsp-bootimage 0.8.2

Follow the Quick Start guide here: http://en.opensuse.org/LTSP

Give it a test and let me know your feedbacks.

On the side note,  jury verdict in the Novell vs SCO Group trial, Novell wins. Good news for Novell, for Linux and for OSS

Have a lot of fun…

Posted in Build Service, Education, openSUSE 11.2, Server | Comments Off on Annuncing KIWI-LTSP package updates

Russian openSUSE community

March 30th, 2010 by

Hello everybody,

I want to share some ideas about the success of the Russian openSUSE community, and try to answer the question about its popularity. As you can see it is one of the top places:

The reason for the high popularity of this distribution in Germany is of course the fact that the German SuSE distribution and the main branch of development is located in Nuremberg. Popularity in the U.S. is due Novell – an American company, and of course the language is English. But why are so many people in Russia choosing openSUSE?

Good question. One of the main things that influence the choice of distribution – the quality and localization. The global community plays a top role for quality of distribution and local make it appropriate for Russian language users (of course a local community can be as part of a global community).

Perhaps most important is the documentation. And of course, not everyone wants (or can) read the documentation in English. Everyone wants to read the documentation in their native language. The distribution may be in a good shape and stable, nice and convenient, but without documentation it will use very few. Translated documentation is very important to the community. The translation must have a high quality, understandable, and as it must be kept up to date.

For the community its also profitable that 2 guys from the community working for Novell (in Nuremberg and in Prague). This provides better communication between “developers – community”. It helps to be closer to the project. This allows you to always be aware of all the major news of the project. And of course the translation is much better if they are engaged not just as a translator, but the employee who works on the distribution.

Of course this also applys for software. Although it is not as important as documentation, it still makes an impression on the quality of distribution. Everyone wants to work with the software in their native language %)

A successful community is a group of people who love openSUSE, who understands why the software should be free, who wants to make openSUSE better and better… every day.

Tags: ,
Posted in Contrib, Documentation, Forums, Localization, Wiki | 5 Comments »

OpenOffice_org 3.2.1 beta2 available for openSUSE

March 29th, 2010 by

I’m happy to announce OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 beta2 packages for openSUSE. They are available in the Build Service OpenOffice:org:UNSTABLE project, are based on the upstream 3.2 sources and include many Go-oo fixes and improvements. Please, look for more details about the openSUSE OOo build on the wiki page.

The packages are beta versions and might include even serious bugs. Therefore they are not intended for data-critical usage. A good practice is to archive any important data before an use, …

As usual, we kindly ask any interested beta testers to try the package and report bugs. See also the list of known bugs.

Other information and plans:

The package finally builds also in openSUSE:Factory with gcc-4.5. We sugegst to update because it solves some Calc crashes and maybe more.

The beta3 build should be available two weeks from now. The first release candidate should be by the end of April. The final release should happen in May.

Posted in Desktop, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice_org 3.2.1 beta2 available for openSUSE

Into the Cloud

March 29th, 2010 by

Setting up your own Cloud infrastructure on SUSE has just become a lot easier. You can now use Kiwi and a mostly pre-configured set-up to build your own Cloud node images. Once these images are built setting up your Cloud can be accomplished in a few minutes.

Checkout the Cloud Recipe in the Kiwi Cookbook.

Happy Hacking

Posted in Systems Management, Virtualization | Comments Off on Into the Cloud

Li-f-e updated

March 24th, 2010 by

openSUSE Education team is happy to announce the availability of the updated openSUSE Education Li-f-e DVD iso. The Linux for Education (Li-f-e) contains the wide selection of education, development, office, as well as multimedia packs to meet all possible computing needs of students, teachers and parents.

Some of the highlights of this update:

Desktop Environments:

Additions:

Updates:

  • All official updates to openSUSE 11.2 since its release
  • LTSP 0.5.1.99, includes fat-client support
  • Banshee 1.6 RC1
  • Code::Blocks SVN 6182
  • and of course most of the education packages like gcompris and tux4kids suite got updated.

Download:

Direct Download | metalink | torrent | md5sum

More mirrors on sourceforge

More information here: http://en.opensuse.org/Education/Live

Have a lot of fun

Your openSUSE Education team

Posted in Derivative, Distribution, Education, GNOME, KDE, openSUSE 11.2, Server, Systems Management | Comments Off on Li-f-e updated

How to Add New Packages to the openSUSE Distribution

March 23rd, 2010 by

I’ve added a new package (grub2) to the openSUSE distribution and like to share with you what needs to be done for it, I’m using the package “grub2” as example. To get a package in the distribution, it needs to be in the openSUSE:Factory project in the openSUSE Build Service.

  1. Get an openSUSE Build Service account.  It’s free, just go to the Build Service and register.
  2. Go to your “Home Project” and follow the link to “add a new package”, I use “grub2” as package and filled in the details.
  3. Now add all the files you need to properly build the package.  For openSUSE Factory, you need the spec file (grub2.spec), an empty changes file (grub2.changes) and all source files.
    1. Some of the next steps are done best by the openSUSE Build Service command line client osc, so you should install the current version on your system. If you’re running openSUSE, just do a “zypper in osc”, if you use another distribution, download it from the “openSUSE:Tools” project for your distribution (best way to find it search via our search interface for osc).
    2. I propose to check out the files with osc, e.g. “osc co home:a_jaeger grub2”.
    3. Use “osc vc” to add entries to the new changes file describing what you have changed in the package.
    4. Go to your “Home Project” in the web user interface and add “openSUSE Factory”  using “Add Repository” as build target.
    5. Build the package locally using “osc build”.  If it succeeds, submit all fixes with “osc ci” to the build service.
    6. Now it’s time to wait until the build succeeds on all platforms and distributions you have enabled – and if not to fix it until it succeeds.
  4. Tell the openSUSE Factory maintainers about the new package in an email to the opensuse-factory list with all details as explained here and discuss which devel package should be used for it.
    Note that all packages in openSUSE:Factory are developed in so called “devel projects”.  So, decide where your package fits best – or add it to “devel:openSUSE:Factory”. I choose the later.
  5. Submit the package to the devel project with “osc sr <your-home-project> <packagename> <devel-project>” and add a nice comment  (in my case “osc sr home:a_jaeger grub2 devel:openSUSE:Factory”).
  6. Once the submitrequest gets accepted, check that you are setup as maintainer for the package with “osc maintainer devel:openSUSE:Factory grub2”, if you are the maintainer, you have write and review access to the package.
  7. Submit the package from the devel project to openSUSE:Factory using osc. I did a “osc sr devel:openSUSE:Factory grub2 openSUSE:Factory”.
    Since the package gets submitted the first time, it will go through a good first review including a license check.  So, give the team a week or two for the review.  Eventually you’ll get noticed about the check in.
  8. Now you can update the package in the devel project at your own consideration and don’t forget to submit it timely again after testing to openSUSE:Factory so that people running Factory can use it.

I advise to read the documentation about Factory to understand the mentioned concepts and not just blindly follow my cook book.

Keep in mind that having packages in openSUSE is an honor and an obligation.  An openSUSE release gets fixes for 18 months and as a maintainer of the package, it’s expected that you take care of the package. With having it in Factory, please remember to update it in time for a release and keep in mind that we’re not doing any major updates in a released distribution.

Posted in Distribution, Factory | 2 Comments »

Solving typical problems of BCM4312 802.11b/g

March 22nd, 2010 by

The problem 1: I have a new Broadcom Wireless that doesn’t work with the driver B43, even when I download the firmware.

The problem 2: I don’t wanna use the Broadcom WL driver because its buggy, closed source, and doesn’t support aircrack.

The solution:

After a while working with this solution, i must say that the wireless range its improve and everything else working perfectly.

So, this works for some of those BCM4311-, 12- and those weird cards that don’t work with only the B43 and the Firmware.

  1. Install build essentials with: sudo zypper in -t pattern devel_basis devel_kernel
  2. Download the package compat-wireless from http://wireless.kernel.org/
  3. Unpack the package somewhere: tar xvzf compat-wireles.tar.gz
  4. Enter in the new directory, and execute: make && make install
  5. Wait for a while, and when it ends should say something like “do make unload” DON’T DO THAT.
  6. As root exec: install_bcm43xx_firmware, this script should be in your system path, but only as root. This will download the firmware to /lib/firmware/b43.
  7. Reboot. I found that its more safe to do a clean reboot than write make unload, because i got a kernel panic if i do that. So reboot and your wireless card should be working now with b43. Remember to remove the WL driver so you don’t have conflict between them.

I did this for my Aspire One D150 and some HP Laptops and works without problems.

I hope this information is useful.

Cheers.

Posted in Kernel, Network | 3 Comments »

FOSSCOMM 2010 in Thessaloniki, Greece

March 22nd, 2010 by

I’d like to pass on the following announcement by George Koutsikos:

This year, during the weekend of the 24th and 25th of April 2010, the city of Thessaloniki will be hosting one of the biggest Greek conferences of free and open source software (FOSSCOMM 2010). Communities as well as companies that develop open source code will participate. After the previous two successful fosscomm events in Athens and Larisa, to which more than 300 people attended, Thessaloniki’s turn has come! Those attending the conference are given the opportunity to become more informed about open source in general as well as exchange ideas with communities and companies in the open source world. Moreover, the event is a great opportunity for people to get to know open source software which can particularly help them with everyday as well as professional needs they might have. As always, the organization of the conference is based on volunteers and totally depends on sponsors. In addition entrance is free of charge for everyone throughout the event! There will be several booths, one of which will be dedicated to openSUSE Linux so that participants will be able to get cds/dvds and get informed about our beloved distro.

Info & details: http://www.fosscomm.gr

Posted in Events | Comments Off on FOSSCOMM 2010 in Thessaloniki, Greece

Panama Awakenings and Trends

March 18th, 2010 by

Friday 19th at 13:00 (EST) at ULACIT (Laureate) in Panama City. Carolina Flores H. (Social Psychologist and Free Software activist) will give a talk about “Para Cambiar el Mundo, Hay que Cambiar el Software” (If you want to change the World, you should change the Software). And openSUSE will have a small space to talk about the advantages of openSUSE in our daily tasks .

This year will be a great year for Linux lovers in Panama because several free and open source communities users, business people, academics, communications media and gouvernment wil have convergency for planning the Information Technologies and Telecommunications National Strategies for Logistics, Finances, Education, etc.

Click on link to watch photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/RICARDO.A.CHUNG/FLISoL_2010#

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Education, Events, lizards.openSUSE.org | Comments Off on Panama Awakenings and Trends

FLISOL 2010 in Venezuela

March 18th, 2010 by


The Latin American Festival of Installation of Free Software (Festival Latinoamericano de instalación de Software libre) will be held this year in over 213 cities throughout the region, including at least 19 Venezuelan cities, bringing together much of the community of users and developers of open technologies in the country.

With the help of a high exponent of free software in the region, thanks to sponsorship from Novell, openSUSE will be present in all 19 locations, where participants can receive DVD’s, Geckos, Stickers, Shirts and more allusive to our community.

The events have multiple course lectures and assistance in installing free software on the computers of all stakeholders.

The openSUSE ambassador alexbariv will be present with a chat and demostrations of the distro on the city of Mérida.

Only remains to invite the Linux community in general to assist in their means to one of the 19 events being organized, being the principal  held in the city of Caracas, Venezuela.

Finally, thanks to Novell and the openSUSE Community for all their support.

Fore more information:

http://flisol.org.ve/

http://twitter.com/flisolve

http://flisol.org.ve/chat/

Posted in Events | 2 Comments »

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