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Unknown Horizons, a nice strategy game, now on openSUSE

May 9th, 2011 by

A few days ago I was wandering on the openSUSE Forums, once more in the games section when I saw one more post from one of our users asking for Unknown Horizons… I’ve search a bit and found 2 entries on OBS (openSUSE Build Service), one for Fedora packages and another for openSUSE packages.

I’ve joined #unknown-horizons on FreeNode and found out that Unknown Horizons is very active and people are very nice. I’ve made a few questions around and offered myself to package this nice game for openSUSE (home:ketheriel:UnknownHorizons). Some of the dependencies are provided by the games repository, to which I want to submit the major releases, and if possible enable builds for Fedora (and friends).

A few packages need some tweaks to enable builds for Fedora (allegro, libenet, guichan), and I’m working already on that. Meanwhile for everyone who wants to check out the latest development snapshot of Unknown Horizons, feel free to do so… Currently packaged for:

* openSUSE 11.3
* openSUSE 11.4
* openSUSE Factory
* openSUSE Tumbleweed

The 1-Click installer can be found on Unknown Horizons download page.  There’s also a nice article (bumping ego) about the new openSUSE packages on Unknown Horizons webpage!

This is a title that all openSUSE users who like RTS games should try (supports openGL and sdl) and is powered by the FIFE Engine.

Unknown Horizons - Settings Menu - openSUSE 11.4 GNOME3

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Posted in Build Service, Desktop, Distribution, Forums | Comments Off on Unknown Horizons, a nice strategy game, now on openSUSE

openSUSE 11.4: Built to Rule Gnome

May 6th, 2011 by

Six years ago, when I joined the Novell team’s office in Cambridge, some of my cohorts in what used to be the Ximian Red Carpet team had an expression: “Red Hat 7.3 + Ximian Desktop” – they sometimes used it to indicate what had been a quantum leap in the Linux Desktop experience of the Gnome Lineage.  Having been personally a vi+terminal kind of guy, and the Konsole being a great terminal multiplexer since times ancient, I had some precise idea of what KDE releases I had particularly appreciated as smoothly integrated (SuSE 6.2 comes to mind), so the expression stuck in my mind as the ultimate paragon of a Gnome setup.  Sure, great things happened since, but the first time you did not have to grease the wheels of every detail for hours to have a smooth environment certainly sticks in your head in a certain indelible way.

openSUSE has been a pretty good Gnome distribution for a long time now, but 11.4 really gave me a different feeling: I found only 1 bug I care to solve in my laptop support, and the defaults I had out of the box were all more than good, they were pleasing.  It is not just functioning well, it is smooth, it has a quality that is hard to describe but we all know it when we see it.  Which is just so damn awesome 🙂

Usually I tinker for days to get an environment I am comfortable with (I am a clinical case, I do this on OS-X, Windows and Linux irrespective), but in this case, I had to do very few things to get a very nice setup for my work laptops, both esthetically and functionally. So here comes my ultimative Gnome quick setup guide to a rocking openSUSE 11.4 Gnome experience.

F2’s Quick-Yet-Awesome Gnome Environment Recipe
In no particular order, proceed through the following steps

  1. Pidgin
    su
    zypper in pidgin
    Make it a Gnome startup application
    Control Center | Startup Applications | /usr/bin/pidgin
  2. Flash Player
    Yes, you still need it. Yes, we do love HTML 5 nonetheless.
    zypper in flash-player
  3. Glipper
    A clipboard manager, to keep multiple recent cut&paste targets simultaneously at hand.
    Head to the buildservice and help yourself to a one-click install.
    Logout. Log back in. (suggestion of a smarter way to do this would be appreciated)
    right click | add to panel | clipboard manager
  4. Gnome Do
    Setup Gnome Do to run at login (it is now in the default install)
    gnome-do
    preferences | general | start Gnome Do at login
    fixing hotkey to ctrl-enter
    Select the Glass theme – matches the openSUSE default theme better on 11.4
    I really wish there was a way to have Gnome Do autoclear its buffer after 1 second (or even better when one retypes a similar string), typos are rather defeating in its default mode (“pidxpidgin”, anyone?)
  5. Firefox
    Fix Firefox’s backspace key behavior to match non-Linux platforms (page back) rather than the do-nothing default:
    navigate to About:config | browser.backspace_action = 0
  6. Hostname
    Set a hostname if DHCP does not do it for you.  No self-respecting terminal monkey would have a random hostname!
    YaST | Network Settings | Hostname/DNS
  7. Tilda
    You just cannot overestimate how helpful Quake Terminals are.
    One click install
    tilda -C
    fix hotkey (keybindings | grab keybinding) to <ctrl>grave
    increase buffer (scrolling | Scrollback | 1000)
    Now fix the appearance (the defaults work anywhere but they are ghastly-lookin’ 🙂
    general | enable Double Buffering [x]
    appearance | height | 66%;  width 100%
    enable transparency [x] ; Level of transparency 30
    enable pulldown [x] ; Delay 15000 usec
    use image for background [x]
    I use a Gimp-scaled version of the desktop wallpaper there (defaults are in /usr/share/wallpapers)
    Make it a Gnome startup application
    Control Center | Startup Applications | /usr/bin/tilda

    Tilda is the crankier bit (even with all that tuning, it is not yet as smooth as Visor at pulldown, there is still some flickering left).  I am not going to go all-out and say that 2011 is the year of the Linux Desktop, but it sure feels pretty nice an environment to work in, and configuring was quite fast, which means most defaults are better than good.

    Suggestions, corrections and additional ideas are welcome. Ramble on, I am reading!

right click | add to panel | clipboard manager

Posted in GNOME | 5 Comments »

Gpick – An advanced color picker…

May 5th, 2011 by

It was brought to my attention through I article (german) the existence of gpick, an advanced and high featured color picker. I’ve taken a quick look at it to make it available for openSUSE as it seems an interesting tool for artists and web designers (maybe GTK3+ themers) and others.

To build this package a few files are generated with the Lemon Parser Generator which isn’t really available. I’m contacting upstream regarding the possibility of including the generated files in the tarball, or eventually if that fails, I’ll probably need to include lemon.c, hand compile it and hack scons build to use the local binary to generate those files.

The screenshots have a tiny glitch on an icon, this is mainly because I haven’t rebuilt the icon cache when I took them. I look forward to explore the possibility of having such a great tool available for openSUSE 12.1.

UPDATE: I’ve made available a small test package on home:ketheriel:gpick (needs some work before submitting to factory) which should be working. Any testing/feedback will be most welcomed. Also enabled builds for Fedora 14, since I believe this package isn’t available for Fedora.

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Posted in Artwork, Desktop, Distribution, GNOME, Packaging | Comments Off on Gpick – An advanced color picker…

Vintage…

May 3rd, 2011 by

Yesterday I’ve seen in facebook a few photos by Chuck Payne from the Marketing team showing his collection of SuSE materials… I do have a few ‘vintage’ items as well… Back in 98 when I tried SuSE Linux 5.3 for the first time, it was somehow expensive to burn DVD’s and I was hanging around on a 56K line back then, so pulling them over the internet was not really an option.

Original SuSE Linux 6.0 box

I liked a lot my first Linux experiences, so still hanging on a 56K modem, I’ve decided to purchase SuSE Linux 6.0 box edition from a Linux reseller in Lisbon. I still remember the thrill of picking up the package at the post office and rushing home to try out my Linux distribution of choice (Red Hat 5.1 didn’t last for long). I’m also happy to say that this box provided my first Linux book, the awesome manual provided with it. I’ve ended up using it for years.

Original SuSE Linux 6.1

SuSE 6.0 started a tradition and the swap to 2.2.x kernel made me purchase once more the latest release of my preferred Linux distribution. Still enslaved with a 56K modem link, after a pleasant 6.0 experience, this became a must in the old ‘internet warrior’ days.

original SuSE Linux 6.2 CD's

I’ve also purchased SuSE Linux 6.2, unfortunatly I only have the CD case and the media itself from this release… The box and the manual probably were lost during the ‘Great Purge’ or lie around in a on old box in the attic… I don’t know, I haven’t found them… but this is a nice souvenir 🙂

Original SuSE Linux 6.3 media

Original SuSE Linux 6.4 Instruction Manuals

SuSE Linux 6.4 was the last SuSE release I’ve bought… at this time I had already cable available and wasn’t living anymore under the 56K nightmare… at work I also had a 2Mbit line available and pulling out stuff was not an issue… This was the 2nd release which featured a graphical installer (implemented on 6.3 I think)….

I also own a SuSE Linux 7.0 original box though I didn’t purchased it. In February 2001 I’ve organized a Linux event in Aveiro which was sponsored by SuSE Linux which sent a huge crate containing:

* 7 Original Boxes of SuSE Linux 7.0;
* 20 SuSE Linux T-shirts (10 in black, 10 in white);
* Around 100 ‘newspaper’ style SuSE Linux edition in english;
* Two huge stacks (maybe around 100 in total) Live CD’s;
* 7 Tux plush penguins (maybe 10, I don’t recall for sure);
* 10 SuSE Linux baseball caps (I had one, also lost in the Great Purge);
* A huge load of stickers and pins (I still have a 10 year old pin from this date with the original packaging/seal)

Red Hat provided for this event around 50 stickers, Sun Microsystems provided 400/500 Star Office 5.1 official media! All this goods were distributed during the event from which sadly I don’t possess photos anymore. It took place in the Cultural Congress Center of Aveiro with the support of Aveiro City Hall and local hardware manufacturer (who payed the bills). We had 3 national linux resellers from SuSE, Red Hat, Debian and Slackware present. The event was a 2 day mega LIP (Linux Install Party) and show Linux room featuring KDE, GNOME, hardware support and multimedia capabilities.

Original SuSE Linux 7.0 printed manual

This was one of the nicest features of buying a box edition (besides the stickers and media). SuSE Linux shipped always with very elegant boxes with awesome polygons (the boxes are actually very nicely manufactured). This manual was like a field manual for a powerful Linux experience… the day saver for starters and professionals. This is one of the reasons why I still advice newcomers to buy openSUSE boxed sets! The value presented on this editions is something really worth the money.

For as much strange as this might sound… I’ve bought more SuSE Software than any other proprietary OS, in fact I only own a copy of Windows NT4.0 Workstation and a OEM License of Windows 7 (bundled with the laptop). Excepting console games, I’ve never payed for so much software as I did to SuSE GmbH!

Only missing the cherry on the top of cake! Do you have one of this on your laptop ?

Powered by SuSE Linux sticker!

I don’t know why… just felt like sharing this old vintage stuff… I am proud to continue using openSUSE, which in my humble opinion delievers the same value that once SuSE Linux provided me! I am also proud to give a bit of my time to package one or another package and improve openSUSE, which also makes me feel like a part of this Linux distribution, something I would never image when I purchased those boxes!

My great thanks to everyone who worked on those releases and is still around! A testimony that your work was enjoyed and appreciated!

Nelson

Posted in Distribution | Comments Off on Vintage…

AMD/ATI Catalyst 11.4 pre-build package … next week

May 3rd, 2011 by

Just a quick note for those of you asking themselve why the new catalyst 11.4 (fglrx 8.841) are not yet published on the non-official repository, there’s an answer : hollidays 🙂

I’ll be back from Greece next week, so I will publish them around the 15th May.

In the meantime, you can counsult this article from Sebastian Siebert

Have fun!

Posted in Base System, Desktop | Comments Off on AMD/ATI Catalyst 11.4 pre-build package … next week

Mockup :: GNOME3 and YaST

April 30th, 2011 by

With the release of GNOME3 I would assume that people are interested in seeing how YaST2 (suggestion: rename it to YaST3 !!) is going to take form with GTK3. Of course this means eventually writing another application in GTK3, hopefully different from the old gnome-control-panel ‘style’ which was actually pretty confusion from the user point of view as it was far too close to gnome-control-center, thus confusing new comers.

My suggestion (unaware if it’s possible or not) was probably to explore GNOME3 features to serve YaST integrated already with GNOME3. This could be an interesting approach as it would offer integration and some advantages:

* Better integration with GNOME3 without having to write(/maintain another application;
* Take advantage of YaST2 modular structure;
* Present YaST in a prime space in GNOME3, thus offering a openSUSE differentiation point;
* No conflicts with possible KDE existing front-ends for YaST2;
* Improve users experience.

My proposal would be something like (maybe to be served as an extension for gnome-shell). Please neglect my ‘lame’ photo manipulation skills:

Mockup: YaST2 on GNOME3

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Posted in Accessibility, Artwork, Desktop, Distribution, Factory, GNOME, Systems Management, YaST | 8 Comments »

subversion with libserf

April 26th, 2011 by

I packaged subversion to built against libserf in addition to neon. This adds a second repository access module to handle http and https schemes with potential improvements. To enable, install the packages from my home repository See updated package location.

To enable, adjust your ~/.subversion/servers file:


[global]
http-library = serf

Beyond this, the package tracks the package from devel:tools:scm:svn.

Posted in Packaging | Comments Off on subversion with libserf

The ‘DreamChess’ incident!

April 25th, 2011 by

Today I was reading the openSUSE forums and found an interesting thread on the ‘Games’ section, from which I quote:

“I remember playing DreamChess on Ubuntu, but the one is not available for Suse 11.4 KDE.”

I’ve taken a look around, gathered the stuff required and made a quick package of this game, thus pushing it forward to the games repository. Within a few minutes of the submission, the package was approved and it’s ready to be served to the masses.

We can’t leave transitioning users from Ubuntu unhappy can we ?! Once more thanks to Dimstar and Prusnak for the quick answer in getting this package into the games repository.

DreamChess 0.2.0 on openSUSE 11.4 with GNOME3

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Posted in Desktop, Distribution, GNOME, KDE, Packaging | 1 Comment »

Fosscomm 2011 in Patras – Greece

April 25th, 2011 by

Fosscomm 2011

The event will take place in Patras this year. For those of you who don’t know, fosscomm is one of the major foss event in Greece.

I’ll go there and will make a presentation :
Amazing openSUSE : we, you, together a promizing future!

I hope to see all of you there! Come and meet the growing openSUSE Greek community, and most of the Greek ambassadors.

Follow them on Twitter. The official hashtag of FOSSCOMM 2011 is: #fosscomm2011

Official Patras city website

PS: The websites is also available in english 🙂

Talk

Title :

Amazing openSUSE
We, you, together a promising future !

Talk Audience

general public, which would like to contribute in FOSS

No special IT knowledge is required.

Abstract

openSUSE project is open: there’s a place for everybody!

Come and (re)discover one of the oldest Linux distribution and one of the most youngest community.

This talk is about the community powering the whole actual openSUSE Project :

We will overfly openSUSE’s history, and the actual projects like open-build-service, susestudio, tumbleweed, evergreen, connect, openqa, and the near future a word about the openSUSE Foundation.

Follow us deeper inside with examples how collaboration works between contributors, users, across the borders with others distributions and upstream projects.

Want to be part of? Let’s talk about the “right” place for you!

 

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Posted in Distribution, Events, lizards.openSUSE.org, Localization, Marketing | Comments Off on Fosscomm 2011 in Patras – Greece

Where our bugzilla needs improvement

April 15th, 2011 by

update 2012-02-07: Success: after bnc#732504 you can now open Advanced Search and find RESOLVED/DUPLICATE bugs by default. When bugs are finally solved and fixes released, those can then be moved to CLOSED state to no more appear in search results.

 

bugzilla.novell.com aka bnc is the central tool to track bugs of openSUSE.

It has a guided bug submission form that helps & encourages reporters to search for existing reports on an issue.

However, the integrated search function only shows open bugs. In principle that is nice, but bugs marked as duplicates of open bugs do not count as open. Also it is common that developers mark a bug as RESOLVED/FIXED as soon as they uploaded a patch into the OBS devel-project. Such a patch then needs some days until it gets into Factory or the Update repos where normal users would benefit from the fix. During that time, there will still be people with all regular updates installed hitting the bug and not finding it on bugzilla because it is no more marked open. Of course, one could also search for RESOLVED bugs, but this brings up a huge list of issues that are long solved, but never were marked CLOSED (e.g. openSUSE-11.3 has 453 CLOSED vs 2727 RESOLVED).

This wastes time of reporters writing a duplicate bug-report and wastes time of developers having to figure out that it really is a dup. This is probably why other projects recommend setting bugs to ASSIGNED/FIXED until the patch is released. Unfortunately bnc lacks this state.

Also bugzilla has an UNCONFIRMED state for new bugs that need triaging to get into the NEW state (named “Reproducible but not assigned” in other projects). Such a state is unavailable on bnc, so that people can not tell apart bugs that have been forgotten from bugs that are known to exist, but just wait for a developer to fix.

There was also little integration between OBS and bnc. I have therefore written scripts to update bugzilla entries with links to submit requests on OBS mentioning e.g. bnc#685133 (<=see link for how it looks like). But it still could be made a lot more useful.

Overall, there is some room for improvement to make people’s lives easier, and allow us having a lot of fun…

Posted in Build Service, Distribution, Quality Assurance, Usability | 1 Comment »

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