OpenSuSE 10.2 Review

When you ask someone to name a couple of GNU/Linux distributions, in most cases, you will hear the names Debian, Red Hat, Ubuntu and then, SuSE Linux which is now a days known as OpenSuSE.

The reason is that apart from it being one of the oldest Linux distributions around, it has made a name as a distribution which is robust, secure and user friendly. Originally SuSE Linux was owned by a German company by the same name. But in January 2004, it was acquired by Novell which continued to further develop and fine tune it and include more SuSE specific features to it. The end result is a distribution which has grown to have its own unique identity. OpenSuSE is a community program sponsored by Novell and is developed in an open model.

One of the foremost reason to consider OpenSuSE Linux as a very popular Linux distribution is the mere fact that in the past couple of months, it has risen from the bottom of the heap to enjoy second place, just below Ubuntu Linux, in the Distrowatch most popular Linux distributions list.

This rise in popularity is not incidental. Rather it highlights the quality of this very fine distribution.

A couple of months back, I chanced upon a DVD of OpenSuSE 10.2. While in the past, I have installed a plethora of GNU/Linux distributions, this was the first time I happened to lay my hands on SuSE Linux distribution. And to tell you the short story, I was virtually blown away with its ease of installation and use. While the partition manager embedded in the SuSE installer is not as graphical as that found in Fedora installer, in all other respects it is very functional and intuitive. One thing worth noting is that OpenSuSE comes with flash player (albeit ver 7.0) and Sun Microsystems Java 1.5 runtime environment bundled with it by default and at the time of installation you have to agree to the license requirements of the respective software.

Fig: Redesigned Gnome Menu

The minimum specification for installing OpenSuSE Linux is a Pentium class processor, at least 256 MB RAM and plenty of disk space. The OpenSuSE installer detected all the devices attached to my machine without any problem. While it is pretty bleak to see a Linux distribution not detect any particular device barring wireless devices or internal modems, you can make sure that your laptop/desktop is supported by OpenSuSE by checking their hardware compatibility list (HCL). Once I finished installing the distribution and booted into it, I came face to face with a clean Gnome desktop. What is unique about the OpenSuSE Gnome desktop is that it includes a redesigned menu different from what you will find in the default Gnome setup. More over, the search is integrated in the menu with Beagle search playing a very important role in providing real time search. This is not surprising as projects such as Beagle search and Tomboy are developed by Novell engineers and is based on Mono language; which is also the initiative of Novell.

There is a central place called the "Control center" which can be accessed by clicking on the start bar (named "Computer" in OpenSuSE Gnome Desktop) and then clicking the "Control center" in the menu. Here all the applications are categorized by type or functionality which in my opinion makes it easy to navigate. Though the menu in the Panel of KDE is also redesigned, I found the Gnome menu much more pleasant to use than that found in KDE. But in KDE, there is an option to switch to the classic view which can be done by right clicking on the menu button and choosing "classic view". I couldn't find a similar method to switch in Gnome though.

Fig: Control center

By default OpenSuSE provides KDE and Gnome and you have to choose one over the other at the time of installation. But if you select a custom setup , then you can easily install packages specific to other window managers and desktops.

Over a period of time, Novell has also built a massive collection of documentation, tips, faqs and howtos related to accomplishing tasks in OpenSuSE which can be viewed here.

OpenSuSE Linux uses the RPM format to distribute its packages. And there are more than one ways of installing packages. But the most popular form of installing software in OpenSuSE is using YaST which does a good job of automatically checking for any dependencies.

A brief introduction to YaST

YaST is a unique tool found in OpenSuSE which allows one to do all the system administration tasks from within its GUI interface which includes package management, managing users, configuring firewall, configuring devices and almost all the other system maintenance and network administration tasks you could think of. It can also be used from the command line. YaST2 comes with three front-ends. GTK, QT and ncurses. And you can start the "YaST control center" using the command yast2. The correct front-end is automatically selected based on the available components and the current environment.

YaST supports the following modules to load the requisite GUI front-end. They are as follows :

answering_machine,  bootloader,  ca_mgm,  dhcp-server, dns, dns-server,fax, firewall,
groups, host, http-server,  idedma,  inetd,  irda,  kerberos-client,   keyboard,   lan,
language,  ldap,  mail,  mouse,  nfs, nfs_server, nis, nis_server, ntp-client, power-management,
powertweak, printer,  profile-manager,  proxy,  remote,  routing,  runlevel, samba-client,
samba-server, security, sound,  sysconfig,  tftp-server,  timezone, tv, users.

Here is how yast2 can be used from the command line.

To load the interface of a specific module you use the following syntax :

# yast2 <module name>

For example, if I want to add more users to the system, I can use the following command :

# yast2  users

... which will load the GUI front-end for adding users. For starting the power management utility, run the yast2 command as follows:

# yast2 power-management

.., and so on. You can also start YaST in interactive mode by passing it the phrase 'interactive'. For example, when you use the command :

# yast2 users interactive
YaST2 users> help

OpenSuSE will place you in the 'YaST users' interactive shell where you can run commands to add, remove or modify user data. After you are done, you can press 'exit' or 'abort' to come out of the shell.

AppArmor - OpenSuSE's unique security feature

While other main stream Linux distributions such as Red Hat and Debian have beefed up their defenses by incorporating SELinux into their structure, OpenSuSE has traveled a different path. Instead of SELinux, it comes bundled with its own security framework tool called AppArmor.

Novell claims AppArmor is equally robust and provides similar application level access controls with the exception that it is much more easier to configure and maintain than SELinux. The apparmor profile used by default makes OpenSuSE very secure. You can read more about Apparmor here.

Pros of OpenSuSE 10.2

• Robust and secure GNU/Linux distribution
• A good collection of software including easy availability of proprietary ones packaged in the SuSE RPM format. For instance, you can easily install proprietary Nvidia graphics drivers using YaST.
• Excellent GUI front-ends for almost all system and network administration tasks.
• Has incorporated some cutting edge features in Gnome and KDE desktop such as the redesigned Panel Menu.
• Good all round integration of Beagle search.
• Bundles with it Flash player and Sun's JDK 1.5 by default.
• Has an easy graphical method to enable/disable XGL if you like special effects on your desktop.
  

Cons of OpenSuSE 10.2

• To put it lightly, I found OpenSuSE 10.2 to be a memory hog. On my machine with 640 MB RAM, it was sufficiently slow. I attribute it to the number of services running on OpenSuSE by default.
• With the recent cloud formed over Novell striking a deal with Microsoft, many in the open source and Free software community are concerned about the direction in which Novell is going to steer SuSE in the future. There are also aspersions cast on whether this fine GNU/Linux distribution will remain Free at all.

KDE 4.0 the holy grail of Desktops ?

A couple of weeks back, I was greeted by the news of a very interesting project having been moved to KDE base. The project in question is a file manager named Dolphin. What is unique about this file manager is that it is light weight, is simple to navigate without overwhelming the Computer neophytes but at the same time does not sacrifice much functionality.

In fact, I installed Dolphin on my machine which has only one window manager namely Xfce. I do not have KDE on this machine. And normally, my experience is that while running KDE applications in non-KDE window managers, the applications suffer some latency at the time of start up. But I was surprised to see that Dolphin started as quickly as any other application. I would so much as say it was even quicker to start up than its equivalent Gnome file manager Nautilus in Gnome. I do not want to start anything by comparing one file manager with another. But let me say this, Dolphin is as easy and simple to use as the Gnome file manager.

Fig: Dolphin file manager with three different file views including split panes.

On concerns shared by the power users who have grown to love the present default file manager in KDE namely Konquorer, this is what Aaron.J.Seigo - the lead developer of KDE project had to say - and I quote :

So, what is the point of dolphin? First, I think it's obvious to everyone that konqueror kicks some pretty serious ass. The downside is that it's really tuned for a particular category of power users. Our plan is therefore to introduce a file manager that is aimed at the rest of the masses and tuned specifically for file management. Where does this leave konqueror? As a power user's app and generally useful multi-function tool. i expect we will continue to ship konqueror in its current form, modulo kde4 improvements to the ui and guts.

From the above statement, I have inferred two things namely :

1. The KDE users who have the mind set of Linus Torvalds need not worry as the new KDE (4.0) will still have all the features that make it the favorite of power users. And more importantly ...
2. The KDE team is making a pitched effort to rein in rest of the people which includes the grandmas and grandpas of this world by providing them an alternate file manager which doesn't overwhelm them.
   

I am sure you will agree with me that a file manager forms one of the most frequently used application in any desktop. You can't think of a OS or desktop devoid of a file manager. And by integrating the light weight file manager Dolphin into the KDE base, the KDE team is sending out a strong signal that it aims to be a Desktop fit for all kinds of people namely the power users and the grandma kinds alike.

Indeed if this trend is duplicated across other KDE applications, KDE 4.0 could very well end up as the holy grail of Desktops.

Yahoo mail now provides unlimited storage

My first email id - the very first one I created when I was introduced to the Internet - was a Yahoo mail id. I still remember my mail box had a measly 5 MB storage limit. At that time, Yahoo was the most popular web portal around and also the dominant search engine. Then Google came along and the rest as they say is history.

With Google starting Gmail and providing a humongous 2GB and counting mail storage for each of its users, it as much as literally pulled the rug from under the feet of most heavy weights including Yahoo. While currently Yahoo has reportedly 250 million email users, and is still the leader in size in relation to Google's 50 million, it has to be noted that Gmail was able to get so many users in a significantly short time, that too when it was in the beta stage. And the number of people switching to Gmail is increasing at a rapid rate.

Yahoo eventually did hike the storage limit to 1 GB for all its free users with the paid users getting 2 GB of storage but its email interface couldn't hold a candle to the Gmail interface which most users fell in love with.

I myself switched to Gmail because I found it much more convenient to go through my mail as they were presented in the form of a conversation. And the tagging of mails was a real boon to sort ones mail. Over and above that, Gmail provides free POP3 access which is a paid feature in Yahoo mail.

Yahoo has made a number of mistakes which has helped Google usurp its position and become the leader in search and advertising and a strong competitor in mail and a few other domains.

Now it seems Yahoo is slowly waking up to the ground realities. The latest news is that it has decided to provide unlimited storage space for its mail users which I whole heartedly welcome.

Unlimited as in infinite. You can store any number of elephants if you can some how convert the elephants to its equivalent bytes ;-) .

One thing worth noting is that Yahoo doesn't allow you to convert its mail box into a virtual drive such as is possible with Gmail. Not yet anyway. While Google doesn't say that it allows one to use ones Gmail box as a virtual drive, there are projects such as the xmail hard drive and Gmail drive which makes it easy to use the email id to store your files in Gmail.

And then, Yahoo Mail servers are reportedly being powered by FreeBSD where as Gmail servers use Linux as their OS. I need not tell you which email service will be favored by a person maintaining a Linux blog ;-).

Mount an Ext2 or Ext3 partition in Windows

There are different ways of sharing files between GNU/Linux and Windows. Mostly we make use of the services of a FAT32 (or FAT16) partition which can be read and written to by both Linux and Windows. The disadvantage of using a FAT partition for sharing files between Windows and GNU/Linux is that you are forced to reserve a part of disk space solely for sharing files. But this is just one of the number of file sharing methods available for people who wish to dual boot between the two OSes.

Another method which comes to my mind is to use the new stable release of ntfs-3g module which allows you to mount an NTFS partition as read-write in GNU/Linux.

But the method which has caught my fancy the most is a project which allows me to mount a ext2/ext3 GNU/Linux partition in Windows and assign it a drive letter similar to C:, D: and so on. The project in question is the Ext2fs installable file system. This project is the brain child of Stephan Schreiber. Once this driver is installed on Windows (98/2000/XP), you can easily mount a Linux partition on your computer into Windows and assign a drive letter to it. Once that is done, the files in the Linux partition can be browsed, read and written to.

Fig: Installing the Ext2 IFS driver

Fig: Another installation screen shot

The first step is to download the setup program from the ext2fs site and install the ext2 driver for Windows. Once the driver is installed, you will find an icon named "IFS Drives" in the Control Panel in Windows (See figure below). Double clicking on the icon will open a dialog box which will show all the partitions on your machine including the Linux partitions. Using the drop down box on the corresponding partition, you can assign drive letters to them.

Fig: Access the IFS GUI from the control panel in Windows

Fig: Assign drive letters to the ext2/ext3 partitions from the Ext2 IFS GUI.

Viola! now you can access the files on the corresponding Linux partition from the Windows file explorer by clicking on the drive letter you assigned to that partition. What is more, if you have a floppy which is formatted using the ext2 file system, then it could also be accessed in Windows without any problem.

Advantages of Ext2 IFS

• Read and write access to files residing in Linux ext2/3 file system from within Windows.
• Read and write access to floppies with ext2 file system.
• Seamless integration and use of ext2/3 file system in Windows to the extent that all applications have access to it.
  

Disadvantages of Ext2 IFS

• This program has a drawback in that it mounts only Ext2/Ext3 partitions. So if you have installed Linux on any other file system such as reiserfs, JFS or XFS then you are out of luck.
• Does not have support for Linux logical volumes. So if you use LVM in Linux, this software will be useless even if the underlying file system is ext2 or ext3.
• Current version of Ext2 IFS does not maintain access rights. So mounting an ext2 partition in Windows will give full access to the files on it to all the users.
  

While there are some limitations to this software as noted above, one convenience I see in using this method of sharing files between Windows and Linux is that once you have finished, you can also hide the corresponding Linux partition by re-opening the "IFS Drives" GUI front-end from the control panel and then removing the drive letter you assigned to the partition previously.

If by any chance you do not like any of the methods explained here, you can transfer files between Windows and Linux using a floppy or a USB key too ;-).

Bash FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

I was once motivated enough to write a guide on Bash scripting which I chose to call "The 10 Seconds Guide to Bash Scripting" which, if missed, you can read here. Even though many of you may challenge me on the time I claim is enough to read through the guide, I am sure you will find it useful.

Today I came across a collection of tips that are compiled into an FAQ which explain many questions related to Bash scripting. Considering that Bash shell is the default shell for all GNU/Linux distributions and it being bundled with other Unix OSes, it has in my opinion gained more credibility than the erstwhile Bourne shell (which btw is still the default shell for Solaris). The FAQ is maintained by a person named Greg and can be accessed here. There are altogether 75 questions followed by their answers. Aside from being informative, many of them are interesting as well.

While we are on the topic of Bash shell, you may also be interested in reading a list of the common Bash shell keyboard shortcuts.

Steps to manually mount a USB flash drive in GNU/Linux

I recently got hold of a 1 GB USB memory stick. It is a Kingmax 1 GB flash drive (U201G - U2GMHDWG) which is (believe it or not), half the size of my little finger. In fact, it is so small that there is a good chance I might misplace it somewhere if it was not tethered to a chain. Anyway, the USB stick has a FAT partition on it and contain some data which I wanted to access in GNU/Linux. I was using Ubuntu and it straight away detected the device as soon as I inserted it and it was automatically mounted in the /media/USB DISK location.

Fig: The tiny 1 GB USB flash drive from Kingmax

But when I tried to mount it in a bare bones Linux distribution (a distribution which has just enough software as is needed), it was not mounted automatically. This is because the auto mounting takes place by means of a program known as hotplug which detects the USB device that is inserted in real time and then mounts it in the desired location.

So is it possible to mount a USB device (in my case the USB stick) manually ? Yes, it is possible. The idea is that the USB ports are detected by GNU/Linux as /dev/sdax - where 'x' in sdax stands for the number of the USB port. And once the USB device is connected to the USB port of your machine, you have to mount it manually.

These are the steps I followed to successfully mount the USB memory stick on my bare bones Debian Etch machine.

1. Insert the USB stick into the USB port. My machine has 4 USB ports, 3 in the back and one at front. It doesn't matter which port you insert the device. The first USB port you use will be assigned the name /dev/sda1, the next port /dev/sda2 and so on.
2. Check if the USB device is detected by GNU/Linux by running the following command:
   

   # lsusb
   Bus 002 Device 007: ID 0457:0151 Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. Super Flash 1GB Flash Drive
   Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8086:1120 Intel Corp.
   Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
   Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

   The first line in the output of the above command shows that the memory stick has been detected as Super Flash 1 GB Flash drive.
3. Mount the device in the desired location. I chose to mount it in the /mnt/usbstick directory.
   

   # mount -t vfat -o rw,nosuid,nodev,quiet,shortname=mixed,uid=1001,gid=100,umask=077,iocharset=utf8 /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbstick

As an aside, you can do away with a lot of mount options such as nosuid, nodev and so on. The uid is necessary and is my user id number which allows me to access the device without being logged in as root. And if you are not sure of the partition on your usb stick, you can also use auto instead of vfat.

Update (19th March 2007): I forgot to mention one thing. The 'lsusb' command is used to find out if your USB device has indeed been detected by GNU/Linux kernel. If it is not detected by any chance because of non-availability of Linux drivers for your device, the command will not output the specific information. Once you are sure that the device has been detected, you can use the fdisk command to list the device(s) as follows :

# fdisk -l

which will list all the devices including the USB devices detected by GNU/Linux. Then you can use the mount command to mount it at a specific location.

An interesting marketing campaign by Red Hat

What does a company whose main (or only) source of income is from providing services and support for its products to enterprises do when its territory is threatened by competition ? It embarks on a massive marketing campaign highlighting its advantages over similar services and products offered by its competition.

That is exactly what Red Hat is doing but with a difference. It is actively using the free resources available on the Internet to kick start its advertising campaign. More specifically, it has uploaded a collection of videos on Youtube which highlight the advantages of using its latest offering Red Hat Enterprise Linux ver 5.0. The videos are in the garb of "Technology Lessons" and are short, to the point and quite entertaining to watch.