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Archive for the ‘Desktop’ Category

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openSUSE 11.2 M2 (Gnome)

May 29th, 2009 by

Well, today I downloaded the Gnome Live CD first, and had no luck at all. That was no fun watching the busy cursor over and over again after selecting the Live CD option from the Menu so I decided to get the DVD just to see if things went different (actually not the only reason for), and sure they were. First, I installed the KDE Desktop, not a deal through the install process. Then came the first log in and all well. Of course I chose the Ext4 file system and I can tell it feels faster than our good old Ext3 ;).

Then it was time for Gnome. As usual, default install took longer than KDE’s. One thing I removed from the software was Desktop Effects, since I started to believe that that could cause the problem with the Live CD Media. So on through the install process, it went down really well. Then at first log in I got alerted over GDM and Metacity. I got this:

waring_metacity

By default, the Slab Menu Icon looks like this when Main Panel’s Size is 24 pixels:

Computer_icon24

Looks like your computer is not your computer, right? Well, I just resized Main Panel up to 26 pixels so it looks like better:

Computer_icon26

I must admit that I like the default theme. Absolutely new, darkish, professional. First time I feel comfortable “out of the box”. One feature that is not workig 100% is the System Monitor. At this time I cannot switch between tabs. The rest of the system is pretty running smoothly to me. Here you have a screenshot of my desktop:

opensuse112m2

Posted in GNOME, openSUSE 11.2 | 2 Comments »

OpenOffice_org 3.1 rc5 available

May 25th, 2009 by

I’m happy to announce OpenOffice.org 3.1 rc5 packages. 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 release candidates but they might still 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, …

We kindly ask any interested beta testers to try the package and report bugs.

Other information and plans:

Last week was hectic. We did 3 more release candidates and I think that we are really close now. We need two more days to finish QA of the last build. I believe that it will be the last one and I will be able to put the packages into the STABLE repository. It expect that the packages might appear there by the end of this week. I do not promise it but…

I have good news for Russian speaking people.  One external contributor, with the nick EGD, send me a Russian templates gallery. You might try the package OpenOffice_org-templates-ru in the OpenOffice:org:UNSTABLE project. I’ll put them into the STABLE repository after some clean up.

Posted in Desktop, OpenOffice.org | 2 Comments »

OpenOffice_org 3.1 rc2 available

May 18th, 2009 by

I’m happy to announce that OpenOffice.org 3.1 rc2 packages are available in the Build Service OpenOffice:org:UNSTABLE project. They include many upstream and Go-oo fixes. Please, look for more details about the openSUSE OOo build on the wiki page.

The packages are release candidates but they might still 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, …

We kindly ask any interested beta testers to try the package and report bugs.

Other information and plans:

I am sorry to say but we need rc3 to fix the bug #503482. The rc3 packages should be available by the end of this week. I hope that they will pass QA and I’ll be able to put the in the the STABLE repository the following week. I am sorry for another delay. We must define the feature freeze earlier the next time.

Posted in Desktop, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice_org 3.1 rc2 available

openSUSE-GNOME BugDay Weekend Wrapup

May 18th, 2009 by

As posted to the openSUSE-GNOME Mailing List.

Greetings!

Thanks to all who showed up to help on the bug day on
Friday, your efforts are greatly appreciated.

We started with just over 70 bugs and left the *obby
session available over the weekend.  By the end of the
weekend, we had reviewed 14 bugs (9 of which we closed).

These were all Critical and Major bugs listed for openSUSE
11.1.

I will be closing the *obby session this afternoon at about
1700 CDT.

Thanks again!
—
Christopher M. Hobbs [chobbs@siloamsprings.com]
Network Administrator, City of Siloam Springs

Posted in Desktop, Documentation, GNOME, Quality Assurance, Usability | Comments Off on openSUSE-GNOME BugDay Weekend Wrapup

A Quick Tour of GNOME Shell

May 16th, 2009 by

Because I feel a tad bit guilty about missing all of the Community Week sessions this week (school and work training, and before you ask, I’ve got more training all this weekend, so I can’t make those sessions either), I did decide to do a quick tour of the GNOME Shell, one of the integral parts of the GNOME 3 series, scheduled to be coming out in 2010 or so.

First, big thanks to Vincent Untz for packaging the GNOME Shell packages for openSUSE! I’m using these packages for my testing purposes

Here’s the quick tour:

First, here’s the openSUSE 11.1 desktop w/ GNOME 2.24 running GNOME Shell:

GNOME Shell Desktop

GNOME Shell Desktop

Note the Activity menu and the specially-capulated notification area. Good stuff. I al so like the stylized panel, but I don’t like it at the top. When  openSUSE adopts GNOME 3, I’d like to see it moved to the bottom.

Windows being created from the Application Launcher

Windows being created from the Application Launcher

Clicking on the Activity menu opens this menu. The desktop shrinks into a side (and you can create or remove as many as you wish, which is seriously awesome), and opens the most recent Applications and documents (I think). If you wish to open an application, double-click or drag the icon onto the desktop you wish it to open to.

Search

Search

Here I did a simple search for SUSE. Applications and documents that matched that search pop up (although I’m not sure what indexing service that is, I’m relatively sure it’s not Beagle, openSUSE’s desktop search indexer).

Full search results shown

Full search results shown

Here’s an expanded view of the search for apps with SUSE. The desktops slide out of the way, and a multi-column (and page) view pops up. To open, drag an icon over to the right (onto the desktop).

Overall, I like it. Combined with the new stuff coming next year in GNOME 3, this could be quite an interesting release. One of the most important things to note is that this interface seems incredibly tailored toward netbook’s small screens.

What do you think?

Posted in Desktop, GNOME | 14 Comments »

openSUSE-GNOME BugDay: “Community Effort”

May 14th, 2009 by

PSA sent to opensuse-gnome@opensuse.org, opensuse-project@opensuse.org, opensuse-announce@opensuse.org

Greetings!

Please join us for the openSUSE-GNOME BugDay code named “Community Effort” tomorrow
(Friday 14 MAY 2009) at 1100EDT/1500UTC.

We’ll be squashing blocker, critical, and major bugs in 11.1 related to GNOME.

More information can be found on the wiki:
http://en.opensuse.org/GNOME/BugDays/20090514

A Gobby session will be announced at the beginning of the meeting to assign/close
bugs. Should you have any questions, feel free to ask in #openSUSE-GNOME on Freenode,
or email me directly.

We hope to see you there!
—
Christopher M. Hobbs [chobbs@siloamsprings.com]
Network Administrator, City of Siloam Springs

Posted in Desktop, Events, GNOME, Quality Assurance, Usability | Comments Off on openSUSE-GNOME BugDay: “Community Effort”

OpenOffice_org 3.1 rc1 available

May 11th, 2009 by

I’m happy to announce that OpenOffice.org 3.1 rc1 packages are available in the Build Service OpenOffice:org:UNSTABLE project. They include many upstream and Go-oo fixes. Please, look for more details about the openSUSE OOo build on the wiki page.

The packages are release candidates but they might still 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, …

We kindly ask any interested beta testers to try the package and report bugs.

Other information and plans:

We would like to add few more fixes and provide rc2 the following Monday. I hope that the rc2 build will pass QA, so I could put it into the STABLE repository as well. I am sorry that we are so delayed with stabilizing the additional features and fixes this time.

Posted in Desktop, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice_org 3.1 rc1 available

Kraft 0.32 Released

May 10th, 2009 by

Kraft 0.32 was released a few days ago. Kraft is KDE software for people who operate a small business and want to generate documents like invoices or offers for their customers. Kraft helps to do that in a very efficient way with template texts and a calculation module and of course integration in KDE. Very important is an excellent print out (that’s the face to the customer) which Kraft does via an PDF export of the document.

I say ‘small business’ as a target group and I mean small shops doing crafts like carpenters or plumbers or landscaping working alone or with a few people. I think free software and especially KDE is very good for these kind of companies. Larger companies usually go for specialised software, which is available for nearly all kind of crafts in all levels of usefulness and quality.

When I talk in the community about Kraft (I am of course not as good as Tackat in his best Marble-times) I sometimes feel that the coolness factor of this kind of software is not so big. People seem to think “How can one do this kind of boring, already-there software?”. Well, yes. This kind of software exists. But as free software and on KDE, well integrated into the desktop? Not that I am aware of.

Here are some good reasons to work on Kraft for me personally:

  1. I think it is important that this kind of software is available. Not only Kraft, but other stuff people need for their business, for example financial software like KMyMoney. Well integrated in KDE this can enable another huge group of users which now uses other systems.
  2. It is serious. Kraft is software people use to get their money. If somebody has done work and wants to invoice it she loves a well working software that saves time for her. But if it does not work, it becomes a serious issue quickly because only written and sent out invoices are good invoices from that POV.
  3. Especially because there is much competition from the commercial side, it is fun to try to create free software that is even better from for example the usability perspective. It is real challenging.
  4. I am somehow addicted 😉 This year I work for twenty years on this kind f software. If you like you can check out an underground video which shows software running on an Atari ST, used for daily business in my brothers landscaping company. I released that version in 1991, I still have an earlier release from 1990 which I could not get to run anymore. I started to develop it in 1989.

But back to the new Kraft-release: Beside other things I did some change to the tax system which make Kraft now useable internationally (shame  on me that the earlier versions where tied to german taxing too much).

So please, tomorrow first thing knock at the door of your handcrafter neighbor and ask him if he has thought about invoicing with Linux – Kraft  is with you, when you support him. Chances to get very interesting insights on how non-geeks see the computer world.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in KDE | 2 Comments »

openSUSE-GNOME BugDay!

May 5th, 2009 by

Roll up those sleeves and mark your calendars, because here comes another BugDay!

During Community Week (http://en.opensuse.org/CommunityWeek), I’ll be hosting another openSUSE-GNOME BugDay on Fri, 15 MAY 2009. We’ll start promptly at 1000 CDT and will continue until 1600 CDT. I will be around very early in the day to start prep for the meeting should you have any questions.

We’ll conduct business in #opensuse-gnome on Freenode (irc.freenode.net). I will establish a Gobby session as I’ve done in the past, and we’ll work off of that.

Can’t wait to see you there!

Posted in GNOME | Comments Off on openSUSE-GNOME BugDay!

OpenOffice_org 3.1 beta7 available

May 5th, 2009 by

I’m happy to announce that OpenOffice.org 3.1 beta7 packages are available in the Build Service OpenOffice:org:UNSTABLE project. They 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, …

We kindly ask any interested beta testers to try the package and report bugs.

This build includes an alpha version of OpenXML export filters (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX). We also added many fixes to the OpenXML import filters. They should be able to import and export simple documents now.  These changes affected also the import and export filters of the old binary file formats (DOC, XLS, PPT). So we kindly ask anyone to try this functionality and report bugs especially in the import and export of the old binary file formats.

Other information and plans:

I would like to provide rc1 build the following week. I am sorry to say but we are delayed after the upstream release by two weeks. We did too many extra changes last weeks and they need more testing before we mark the Go-oo based release as the final.

Posted in Desktop, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »

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