Tips – openSUSE Lizards

Build your own Google Earth rpm

Richard Bos — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:08:46 +0000

The last days I’ve spent some time to investigate how to package Google Earth into an rpm. There was already a script called make-google-package available on the internet, but this one creates a debian package only. However, it was a good start to get me going to create a Google Earth (GE) rpm. Although I met quite some obstacles, which is not to uncommon in package building, I was still able to come up with a procedure a get GE packaged. The biggest problem I encountered were incorrect library dependencies, for which I opened issue 702 in the Google Earth issue tracker. Anyway to make a long story short: the rpm installs Google Earth system wide, corrects file permissions, for openSUSE_11.2 it takes care that the font is rendered correctly, the rpm takes care that Google Earth integrates nicely with the rest of the openSUSE system.

The procedure to build the rpm can be found in the openSUSE wiki. One word of caution about the procedure, you need to be an experienced linux user and you need to have access to the openSUSE Build Service (OBS) to be able to build the rpm. This is due to library dependency problem, which prevents it to build without modification to the base system.

If you like and you have the knowledge how to build an rpm with the tool ‘build’, it would be great if you can extend the howto with steps how to do this (build a GE rpm with ‘build’) to the before mentioned page. The same is valid for a procedure that uses VirtualBox to build the rpm.

Last but not last; a procedure or even a script, that uses ”’rpmbuild -ba”’ to build the rpm, would be very welcom as well.

Some KDE 4 tips you should know

FabioMux — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:16 +0000

KDE 4 is definitively my daily desktop environment, although it’s not yet mature like the 3.5.x branch i consider it enough stable and usable, but sometime the default settings and the few time available, don’t help us to appreciate it, so let’s resume some little tip for beginners that feel lost with everything new and don’t want waste their time.

(This article is also available for italian users)

If you want Delete/Move items over the panel click the Plasma icon in the right edge: a second panel will help you to insert other plasmoids, resize the panel, align it, activate the auto-hide, and plus will be enabled the drag’n drop over any item for change their positions
The Show Desktop icon is one of the most feature i use, unfortunately it’s hide between the other plasmoids and his place is taken from the Show Dashboard. If you need see quickly your desktop then right click over the panel and select Panel Settings > Add Object then select Windows and Tasks and drag Show Desktop plasmoid over the panel. Add a key shortuct is easy: right click over the icon submitted and select Show Desktop Settings then click over the button and insert it (if Win + D sound more familiar you can use it too)
Link your software over the main Panel or the Desktop with few steps: just search it into the main menu (Alt + F1) and drag’n drop over the Panel/Desktop. If a folder is dragged from Dolphin/Konqueror over the Desktop you may create, through the popup menu, a Folder View, a Lancelot menu or just an icon that will start a dolphin’s session
You don’t like the Plasma Desktop? Switch back to the old style just selecting the Folder View under Desktop Settings > Type
Everyone has just installed KDE 4 want see the Cube and probabily this effect it’s already activated through KWin, then press CTRL + F11, switch the faces with the arrow keys and select your desktop pressing Return
KSnapshot doesn’t popup with PrtScr? If you miss this feature, then fix it: launch systemsettings, select Input Actions and create a new global shortcut (Command/URL) into the tree list through the contextual menu, fill the multiline text field with a comment, set PrtScr as key, and insert the command ksnapshot, then save. With the same system you can associate your favorite software with a combo key (think on it if you want launch dolphin with Win + E or kfind with Win + F)
The Grid View is something useful for watch and select any window opened in your desktop, try it with Ctrl + F9 or Ctrl + F10 if you want see the windows opened in every Desktop. This feature is also available for align the Desktops in the same view (Ctrl + F8)
KDE 4 seem slow? Before say it try to disable some effect under systemsettings > Desktop. Usually i disable the effects related to the windows minimization (slow redesign) and move (transparence), but if your system is very old, before to leave KDE 4 disable them completely
How to show/hide the invisible files? Both in Dolphin or Konqueror switch their visualization with Alt + .
Klipper improve the clipboard’s system: use Ctrl + Alt + V for paste one of the last ten, twenty,… items already copied, it support also the actions (Ctrl + Alt + X for enable/disable) configurables through regular expressions, they allow to open the string selected with a particular program. Try this feature selecting this: http://www.opensuse.org
Tired to navigate the main menu? Krunner can help you: call it with Alt + F2 and begin to write in the text box a part of the application’s name you would like start and it will search the string between the whole menu. Krunner can also open a folder, search between contacts or bookmarks, convert units or execute little math operations, look the official page on KDE.org for more details.
Some plasmoid look very useful, not only gadgets for fill your Desktop: webmaster should love the Color Picker and keep it fix in the main panel; the Timer will help us to manage our time counting down a configurable interval; Notes is a post-it system; Quick Access is another way to reach our files and folder and navigate between them directly from the main panel.

That’s all for now, hope it help to enjoy a bit more this fantastic Desktop Environment, any new hint is welcome, just leave a comment below

Extract and Compress Right Click Menu on KDE4

Masim "Vavai" Sugianto — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:41:59 +0000

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 :

Download the plugin here :
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/download.php?content=84206&id=1&tan=96989998
Open konsole / terminal
Extract the plugin
Go to the extract folder
Copy all of .desktop file into /usr/share/kde4/services/ServiceMenus
Copy the content of script folder into /usr/bin
Test with dolphin or kde4

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