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Comparing openSUSE 11.2 and Kubuntu Karmic LiveUSB setups

August 8th, 2009 by

Some days ago, KDE 4.3.0 has been released by the KDE community and I myself as a loyal GNOME user was just curious about this new release of the KDE4 desktop environment. Thus I took a test-drive of both openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 5 and the Kubuntu Karmic Daily Build as of the 8th of August 2009 – both are shipping with KDE 4.3.0. Utilizing my Eee PC 901 I setup LiveUSB sticks of both distributions and I’d herewith like to share my findings with the openSUSE community. As you might have noticed, openSUSE Milestone releases provide the ability to deploy the LiveCD ISO image directly to USB flash media as of 11.2 Milestone 4, which is a great step ahead from my perspective. So, let’s get started:

1. openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 5 – (so far) non-persistent

Only one single step is needed here 🙂 Couldn’t be easier!
# dd if=openSUSE-KDE4-LiveCD-Build0201-i686.iso of=/dev/"usbdrive" bs=4M
2. Kubuntu Karmic Daily Build as of the 8th of August 2009 – persistent

While this setup is a bit “harder” to complete it delivers (at least from my perspective) the smoother solution – so far!
Mount the ISO to /mnt/ and rsync the whole content to a FAT32 partition on the USB flash media (here labelled “ubuntu”)
# mount -o loop karmic-desktop-i386.iso /mnt/
# rsync -avh /mnt/ /media/ubuntu/
Now install GRUB (Syslinux should work as well, but I myself prefer GRUB here)
# grub-install --no-floppy --root-directory=/media/ubuntu/ /dev/"usbdrive"
Create a GRUB configuration file /media/ubuntu/boot/grub/menu.lst with the following content
default 0
timeout 3
hiddenmenu
###
title Kubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Daily Build 08-Aug-2009
kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/preseed/kubuntu.seed boot=casper persistent quiet splash
initrd /casper/initrd.lz
Last but not least, resize the FAT32 partition labelled “ubuntu” to its minimal extent and create an ext2/3 partition labelled “casper-rw” within the remaining free space.

Conclusion:

What I’m currently curious about and the major reason for posting this comparison actually: Could some fellow openSUSE community member extend my current solution to beat the Kubuntu setup not only in ease of creation but also in regard of usability? The major difference here is that the openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 4/5 LiveUSB setup isn’t persistent while the Kubuntu one is due to the casper-rw aufs overlay partition.

Posted in KDE, openSUSE 11.2 | 7 Comments »

OpenOffice_org 3.1.1 beta2 available for openSUSE

August 7th, 2009 by

I’m happy to announce OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 beta2 packages for openSUSE. They are available in the Build Service OpenOffice:org:UNSTABLE project and include many upstream and Go-oo fixes. 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.

Other information and plans:

The next build will be available about August 21, two weeks from now, and it should be 3.1.1-rc1.The final OOo-3.1.1 packages should be available at the beginning of September.

I have vacation the following week and will not have access to the internet. I hope that the beta2 build is fine, but if you have any serious troubles with it, please report bug and downgrade to the stable build.

Posted in Desktop, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice_org 3.1.1 beta2 available for openSUSE

The Desktop DingDong

August 5th, 2009 by

Just incase you’ve been living under a rock on Mars there is a certain feature request in openFate. Both Michael and Zonker have posted on the matter but as they are both Internal (as in they get paid by the Big N) I thought I’d throw my external views (these views are not solicited by anyone other than me, yadayadayada) into the pot.  Now I know I was asked to put my thoughts down and send them into the mailing list, but to be honest the whole discussion has turned into a childish “My dad’s got bigger knuckles than your dad” style flamewar and there are multiple threads on the one topic.  Personally I have now switched off of the discussion on the lists as it’s hard to follow and frankly going nowhere.

Firstly I’d like to think that Frank had no malice in filing the feature and only had the best intentions for KDE and openSUSE at heart.  The problem is there doesn’t seem to have been enough background checks and verification of facts prior to unleashing this handgrenade of annoying pointlessness.  If you default on a loan/mortgage/credit card you are in jeopardy of loosing assets.  The same can be carried over to this discussion.

(more…)

Posted in Desktop, Distribution, GNOME, KDE | 10 Comments »

openFATE feature 306967, KDE default

July 31st, 2009 by

There are pretty many pros and cons and even more people with their opinion about the feature. I’d like to summarize what has been said in the discussion in the feature itself and during yesterday’s openSUSE project meeting. Unfortunately the only sure thing is whatever decision is taken – it will be wrong for some. This is why, at this time, we have no default – because openSUSE has strong GNOME and KDE implementations, we offer them side-by-side as equals.  And we made 2 years ago on opensuse-project the decision that we stay with “no default” desktop.

So what do we have so far?

  • a feature request from one of the KDE e.V. board members
  • the feature asks to make KDE default. Reason for that, is to make openSUSE more simple for newbies and to make openSUSE the best KDE distribution around
  • Through the discussion in the feature I’d translate that feature into put the radio button as default to KDE on the desktop selection screen during installation instead of today’s status where everybody needs to make a choice between
  • the highest rated feature in openFATE until today
  • a majority of people supporting this feature (currently approx. 90% pro, 1% neutral, 9% against)

(more…)

Posted in Desktop, Distribution, GNOME, KDE, openSUSE 11.2 | 12 Comments »

New Package: Association Subscribers Manager 3.0

July 30th, 2009 by

I’m happy to announce, that i imported the Assuma Manager to openSUSE. Special Thanks goes to David Haller. The Package can recieved in KDE:KDE4:Community.

More Infos there: http://www.opendesktop.org/content/show.php?content=109313

Tags: , ,
Posted in Contrib, KDE, Packaging | Comments Off on New Package: Association Subscribers Manager 3.0

OpenOffice_org 3.1.1 beta1 available for openSUSE

July 27th, 2009 by

I’m happy to announce OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 beta1 packages for openSUSE. They are available in the Build Service OpenOffice:org:UNSTABLE project and include many upstream and Go-oo fixes. 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.

Other information and plans:

The next build will be 3.1.1-beta2 and should be available within next two weeks. The final OOo-3.1.1 packages should be available at the beginning of September.

Posted in Desktop, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice_org 3.1.1 beta1 available for openSUSE

LXDE, working on “branding-openSUSE”!

July 17th, 2009 by

People that use my HOME project p,robably noticed lots of packages upgrades this days, they are most of all code fixing (to fix gcc post build checks) but some of them are also packages improvments, right now infact, lxde-settings-daemon result to be obsoletes and will be dropped soon from the repo.But excluding this “developers only” topics, you may be interested to know that i’m orking on “branding packages“. the first branding packages will be released today (or next week when i’ll be back from greece XD). The most important branding picture i need to create il the logout one:

As you can see, even if it’s wonderful, it like a punch in our eyes, we need a GREEN, suse based image. Please help me, i’m not so good with images. you can download the original logo from LXDE svn here. Any way, the image MUST be a 325×125 png file.

Feel free to post here progresses you made!

Andrea

Posted in Artwork, Desktop, Marketing, Miscellaneous, Packaging | 9 Comments »

Lydia Pintscher: The Way to Amarok 2.2

July 16th, 2009 by

The following Lines are from Lydia Pintscher, Community Manager from the Amarok Project:

We have been working for a long time on Amarok 2.0 and the whole team was relieved when we finally released it to show what we have been working on and to get feedback from a wider audience. It was a platform release and as such didn’t have all the features Amarok 1.4 had.

(more…)

Tags: ,
Posted in KDE, lizards.openSUSE.org | 10 Comments »

Official X11:lxde project now open! We need you!

July 13th, 2009 by

Thanks to Pavol Rusnak, the official project X11:lxde is now open, first packages are already there available for testing, but, some of them just fail because of code and security checks, we need some patches than, before provide you the best packages you can imagine for that DE.

WE NEED YOU!!!

if any of you want to help us providing patches and various fixing you are welcome, and of course you can begin using OBS collaboration way: http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service/Collaboration

A fast review of the problems we have are available on that post into LXDE forum.

Right now than, if you want to use LXDE you should continue to follow instructions provided on my previous blog post here

Waiting for you and you help

Andrea

Posted in Build Service, Distribution, Miscellaneous, Packaging, Usability, X.org | Comments Off on Official X11:lxde project now open! We need you!

Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment, A.K.A. LXDE

July 11th, 2009 by

“Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment“, is an extremely faster, performing and energy saving desktop environment. It comes with a beautiful interface, multi-language support, standard keyboard short cuts and additional features like tabbed file browsing. LXDE uses less CPU and less RAM the other DE. It is especially designed for cloud computers with low hardware specifications like netbooks, mobile devices (e.g. MIDs) or older computers. It provides a fast desktop experience connecting easily with applications in the cloud. LXDE supports a wealth of programs. The source code of LXDE is licensed partly under the terms of the General Public License and partly under the LGPL.

(more…)

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Posted in Build Service, Desktop, Distribution, Packaging | 1 Comment »

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