Joon's blog

openSUSE 12.2, the new major release of my favorite GNU/linux distribution, was released several days ago. I have used every release of openSUSE since 11.2 and started using this version from RC2. 12.2 is the prettiest openSUSE ever and it runs great – maybe reflecting more time developers had because of the delay. One of the reasons why I like openSUSE is the additional stability 8 months release schedule (instead of 6 months) provides, and I prefer delay to buggy product.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some thoughts and tips I found from running openSUSE 12.2 – hopefully this is helpful for someone – likely first time users.

Repo management

I think the most important thing in maintaining stable openSUSE system is repo management. It is easy to mess up your system by adding unstable repos in openSUSE. I have made the mistake a couple of times. Usually what happens is that you search for a package at http://software.opensuse.org and just click on 1-click install button without verifying if the repo is stable or it is compatible with other repos in your system. Nowadays they updated  software.opensuse.org, and by default it will not show you packages in unsupported repos, so the probability of this happening is smaller now.

It is generally recommended to add only Oss, Non-Oss, Update, (which are there when you install openSUSE) and packman for first time users. If you use only those repos, the system is very stable in general.

And when you try to install/update/remove a package in Software Manager in YaST, and you see hundreds of confliction, DO NOT press Apply! Unless you are doing something like whole KDE update (like from 4.8 to 4.9), this usually means you are trying to install a package which is not compatible with packages currently installed in your system. For example, try to uninstall python and you get:

Please do not press Apply in these cases; you would have to reinstall your openSUSE.

Of course, for some apps you have to add some unofficial repos. Nowadays I am very careful when I do so (you can click on the repo name and check if the repo is stable – some repos explicitly says “not recommended for users”), and my system is very stable.

NVIDIA Graphics Card (NVIDIA vs Nouveau driver)

I generally found Intel graphics works much better with openSUSE. The driver from NVIDIA is proprietary and nouveau is not mature enough yet and each has its own problems.  Both have pros and cons, but while the issues with nvidia for me is a performance issue, the issues with nouveau were more stability issues and thus  I ended up using nvidia driver. But with updates nouveau improved noticeably, so I plan to test it when it gets updated.

NVIDA driver

There is 1-click install of propriety nvidia driver at http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers. It is very easy to install, and do not have any noticeable stability issues thus far. Pretty much the only problem I have with nvidia driver is the slow scrolling problem with QT apps such as okular, lyx, etc. I found that in nvidia-settings, specifying correct resolution for the monitor instead of using AUTO option helps. (To save this you need to run it in sudo mode; $ gnomesu nvidia-settings)

Nouveau driver

This is default driver. It does not have the scrolling problem. But it has some stability issue such as:

• After the first online update and reboot the screen is garbled and unresponsive
  • Workaround: remove “splash=silent” from /etc/default/grub
• gnome-shell freezes, 100% CPU usage bug
• switching to gnome activity view is clunky with virtualbox window

I think except the first one, they are driver bugs, not openSUSE bugs.

Broadcom Wireless

This can be another frustrating issue. Following the unofficial guide, just install broadcom-wl with 1-Click and you should good to go.

Multimedia

Take a look at Multimedia and Restricted Formats Installation Guide 12.2. Should be straightforward. And Unofficial Guide to openSUSE 12.2 has 1-click install button.

Resources

That’s all for now. Some of the resources you will find useful:

• Thread: NEW Users – openSUSE-12.2 Pre-installation – PLEASE READ:
• Unofficial Guide to openSUSE 12.2

Those two links should have all the answers to your questions.

The exuberant ctags utility already supports cython/pyrex so once the following line is added to ~/.vimrc, taglist will start to show tags for cython files (.pyx).

The following post: setting-up-google-calendar-with-kontact-or-korganiser-using-akonadi has very nice instruction with screenshots. Only package name and proxy settings are different in openSUSE.

• Install akonadi-googledata (link to software search page)

• Open up Akonadi Configuration, and click on Add… if you don’t see Akonadi Google Calendar Resourse, then you have to restart akonadiserver.

• If you see that, then open korganizer and (this is pretty much copied from the above post)

1. Right Click on Calendars and click on Add Calendar …
2. Select Akonadi
3. Click on Manage Calendar Sources
4. Click add
5. Select Akonadi Google Calendar Resource
6. Enter your email and password and select ok

• If akondadi google account shows “invalid password” right after you inputted the id and password, then go to Personal Settings – Network Settings – Proxy and check Connect to the Internet directly. Then the login should work.

• After this, adding a new address book with  Akonadi Google Contacts Resourse is straightforward.

This is a workaround for Bug 265051:Plasma panels don’t resize to fit screen height or width … , and it is just Karsten’s workaround. I put it here for the record.

This happens in KDE 4.6.3 (possibly in other versions as well)

For this you need xdotool. It is in openSUSE:11.4:Contrib/standard repo for openSUSE 11.4.
1-Click Install

You need to make following two files:
panel.js

resize-kde-panel.sh

You need to modify the path to “panel.js” file in the second line.

Now make resize-kde-panel.sh executable:

Then whenever the panel needs resizing (potentially after connecting/disconnecting external monitor), just run that shell and it will resize itself.
You can make an application of this shell and run it in GUI mode as well.

Successful with openSUSE 11.4 x64 and IPython 0.11.dev

1. download

2. dependencies

IPython 0.11.dev needs newer version of pyzmq than the one in the openSUSE repos.
You can install it with easy_install:

If it fails because of libzmq0 version, then force the pyzmq version to be 2.0.10.1:

3. compile & Install

http://scribes.sourceforge.net

1. Dependencies

• gnome-common
• gnome-doc-utils-devel
• python-gnome-extras

(Of course, install other dependencies of those libraries as well.)
 

2. Compile & Install

Successful with openSUSE 11.4 and Scribes version 0.4-dev-build954

If you are using AutoHotKey, it is very easy. Just add the following two lines to your script:

Now windows key + mouse wheel scroll up will increase the volume, and windows key + mouse wheel scroll down will decrease it. Of course, you can always change the modifier. (for example, ^!WheelUp means Ctrl + Alt + wheel scroll up)

Word count in a LaTeX document is somewhat tricky because you have to take out macros.

I just found LaTeX word count, which does this for you automatically. There is a Perl script you can download and use offline, but for infrequent use, the web-interface does the job beautifully. You can either choose a file or just copy & paste a LaTeX document.

It supports Unicode, and the author reports that Chinese and Japanese seems to work well.

New version of EditPlus, one of my favorite text editor, just released on 12/02/2009. EditPlus has the best text-process engine in my opinion.

http://www.editplus.com/

Version 3.12

feature
* Restores folding state for recent files.
* ‘Continue to next file’ option on the Find dialog box.
* Directory window keeps previously opened folder icons.
* Directory Window supports displaying open file list.
* Larger/Smaller Font Size command (‘View’->’Screen Font’).
* Supports UTF-8 text in the Output Window.
* #NESTED_COMMENT=y syntax file statement for nested comments.
* Color option for marked lines (‘Preferences’->’Colors’)
* Allows Ctrl+A key in the Window List and Directory Window.
* ‘Web server root directory’ option accepts https://
* ‘Turn off sounds’ option (‘Preferences’->’General’).
* ‘Show full path in the title bar’ option (‘Preferences’->’Layout’).
* -s command line option (Syntax directory).
* Toolbar button for Playback Multiple.
* Toolbar button for the ‘Document’->’Auto Complete’ option.
* Increases max file type number to 50.
* Horizontal scrollbar for the directory pane.
* ‘Show Current Folder Only’ option (Directory popup menu).

bug fix
* Canceling FTP upload could cause program crash.
* ‘Delete Blank Lines’ command could cause program crash.
* Auto Run user tool could not play keystroke recordings.
* Installer could display a warning message on Windows 7.
* Fixes incorrect cursor movement in Thai language.

TeXnicCenter 2.0 Alpha 1 has been released with much better looking editor window and unicode support.

In addition, I could start compiling with TexLive with minimal effort, and once I set my PDF viewer as SumatraPDF, forward search started working without any setting.

Since it is still Alpha, there are many glitches, but it looks very promising.

See the news/Download