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Remastering openSUSE : How to Build your Own openSUSE Based Distro

October 16th, 2008 by

kiwi imaging system

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.

Zimbra Mail Server : How to Make an Archive for Every Incoming & Outgoing Mail

October 11th, 2008 by

zimbra-logoI’m running Zimbra Mail Server on openSUSE since last 2 years. I’m quite satisfied with the great features on Zimbra but I lost one nice feature as included on my old MDaemon Mail Server while still using Windows on 2003-2005. It was an Archival Feature.

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.

PageRank 6 for Indonesian openSUSE Community Website

October 9th, 2008 by

openSUSE-ID PRToday, I have a good news for Indonesian (and for all off) openSUSE community, our community website have PageRank 6 (PR 6). It would be not an important news for all of us, but it’s a good news for me because I know how difficult to get PR 6 with my personal blog 😛

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.

openSUSE Board Elections : Campaign for Pascal Bleser

October 9th, 2008 by

openSUSE Board Elections phase 1 will be finally over at 1200 UTC on 09 October 2008. I’m quite silent with the elections discussion on openSUSE mailing list (marketing, project and another mailing list) due to my job, my project in Indonesian openSUSE community and due to Happy Eid Mubarak holiday here in Indonesia, but as openSUSE lovely user, I will vote for somebody who will be stand for openSUSE board, as our (or me as openSUSE user) gateway between community and Novell.

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.

Pascal BleserI 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 !

Linux Distribution Popularity Across the Globe

August 22nd, 2008 by

openSUSE popularity around the world

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.

Atheros AR 5007 EG on openSUSE 11.0

July 14th, 2008 by

openSUSE 11.0 failed detect this hardware and wrong identifying the device as AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter. I usually uses madwifi driver for Atheros chipset instead of ath5k but the standard madwifi driver could not be applied for the device. After Googling for a while, I could make it works with the special AR 5007 EG madwifi driver, http://snapshots.madwifi.org/special/madwifi-ng-r2756+ar5007.tar.gz.

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
  4. 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

Extract and Compress Right Click Menu on KDE4

July 12th, 2008 by

One of the functional menu that make my life more easier with KDE 3 are the Compress and Extract Menu. With this function, I could make an archive or extract zip file with Konqueror without opening Ark for manually extract or compress the file. Now, I enjoy the KDE 4 on openSUSE 11.0, with Kwin desktop effect and a lot improvement in various area, but I still missing the above menu.

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

Compress and Extract

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 😉

How to Make openSUSE 11.0 GM Live USB

June 20th, 2008 by

openSUSE 11.0 with tons of impovement has been announced on June 19, 2008. Since then it was a busiest day for me : setting up a local mirror providing iso image for openSUSE fans in Indonesia, arrange openSUSE 11.0 release party and preparing Indonesian openSUSE community regular meeting on Saturday, June 21, 2008. We have planned all of these since last month but I must updated the planning with latest news and preparation.

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.

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Welcome to the Official openSUSE Forums !

June 10th, 2008 by

After announced on March 11, 2008, official openSUSE forums has been established and starting work for providing better support for openSUSE community on June 09, 2008. Forums merges 3 existing openSUSE forums, suseforums.net, suselinuxsupport.de and the openSUSE support forums at forums.novell.com.

openSUSE forums

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 !”

openSUSE Training at State Ministry for Youth Affairs and Sports

June 9th, 2008 by

Training1

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.

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