I have been a long and faithful SuSE and openSUSE user since SuSE Linux Professional 9.0, and I followed its development closely, and quite often critically, since the distribution has become a completely Open Source project, with some contribution, essentially to the Italian translation and filling bug reports. However things changed: with openSUSE 11.1 the number of problems on my machines increased significantly (system freezes, X performance and stability problems, …). As a consequence, I have recently decided to switch to another distribution, ubuntu, which is currently offering what I need, without the troubles I had on openSUSE 11.1, which is surely very far from the SuSE (yes, with the…
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Smileys!
Funny smiley translation: have fun!
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It’s openSUSE community week!
Today openSUSE communty week started, with a rich series of events for new and old openSUSE users interested in knowing more about what’s going on behind the scenes of openSUSE. If you want to know what Geeko, openSUSE chamaleon is working on, join openSUSE developers and volunteers by checking the calendar here! The openSUSE community week will finish on May Sunday 17th.
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Now you can choose: use ODF for your documents!
MicrosoftTM released OfficeTM 2007 Service Pack 2, which contains various improvements to the latest version of Office. Among them, one is particularly important: the capability to read OpenDocument Format, the same format used by default by OpenOffice.org, NovellTM OpenOffice (go-oo), and KOffice, which has been approved as ISO standard. This addition empowers you to choose which format to use, in order to be backwardly compatible, and at the same time make your document easier to share, independently from the platform the receiver of the document is working on. In addition, the format has been adopted or is under adoption in various countries, and further details can be found here. Edit…
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Bibliography made easy with Zotero
Collecting bibliographic information and keeping them in order might become a complicated task. However things are made simpler thanks to Zotero a Firefox 3.0 extension that allows references to be captured directly from scientific search engines, and to store them in a easily manageble database, together with attachment (for example the paper in PDF format), noted and abstracts. Zotero can export the references in Bibtex format, and integrates with Microsoft Word and OpenOffice Writer, to allow the references to be inserted in a straightforward manner. Moreover, the database and the attachments are indexed, and can be searched. The list of references can be organized in a multi-level library, and the…
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Installing Salome-Meca 2009 on OpenSUSE 11.1
Salome® is a very powerful open source integrated platform for numerical simulations, including an advanced computational code, called Code Aster®. My interest in Salome is due to its geometry generation capabilities, because it integrates a versatile CAD and a mesher, with automatic generation of hexahedral and tetrahedral meshes. The geometry generation is very useful also to create .stl files to use with tools like OpenFOAM® snappyHexMesh automatic mesh generator. Installing Salome from sources might be challenging, and packaging it for a specific distribution represents a lot of work. However, an alternative and easier way to install Salome on a Linux system is represented by the self-contained package Salome-Meca, which can…
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Adobe Reader 9.1 on openSUSE 11.1 64 bit
A new version of Adobe Reader is available from Adobe’s website. To download it select the English version, and Linux – x86 RPM to obtain the RPM package. No 64 bit version is available, as a consequence some additional work is necessary to make the browser plugin work. The procedure is very simple: Download the RPM and install it using the command: rpm -Uvh AdbeRdr9.1.0-1_i486linux_enu.rpm Type the following command in a root console: ln /opt/Adobe/Reader9/Browser/intellinux/nppdf.so /usr/lib/browser-plugins/nppdf.so At this point Firefox will use the browser plugin to open PDF files. Note: If you have a previous version of Adobe Reader installed, remove it before proceeding with the installation. To perform this…
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Geeko wants you!
OpenSUSE has now a new page, dedicated to who needs help inside the community, and also to those looking for information on how to help and participate to the openSUSE project. The page is dedicated to the lovely chameleon, and as a consequence I called it Geeko wants you! The content and the design of the page are of Rémy Marquis (spyhawk on IRC), who actually reorganized the whole Task page. Thank you! On my side, I simply merged it with the new page, adding some explanation and modifying the structure here and there. Come, join openSUSE and enjoy! 🙂
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OpenSUSE testing
I have recently proposed the creation of a community-based openSUSE testing team, and prepared a short presentation to illustrate what are, in my opinion, the current situation and some of the problems, looking at how these could be fixed. My proposal came probably a bit late, because during the openSUSE 11.1 development phase, some step in the creation of a testing group was done, and I did not know of it. In particular, I would like to sum up the efforts already done: Testing wiki page. OpenSUSE testing mailing list: opensuse-testing@opensuse.org. Email here to subscribe. IRC channel: #opensuse-testing on Freenode servers. The idea of creating the testing team has been…
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Installing Dropbox on openSUSE 11.1
Dropbox is an online file storage and syncronization tool, that offers to its users 2GB of free space or a commercial option with 50GB of space. The service is managed using a small application, available for Windows, Mac and Linux, directly using the operating system file manager. On Linux, dropbox provides a plugin for the Nautilus GNOME file manager, and an applet for the GNOME panel. To install Dropbox under openSUSE 11.1, you simply need to follow this procedure: Install it from the openSUSE buildservice, using 1-click install. Open a terminal in your home directory and execute: cp .xinitrc.template .xinitrc Edit your ~/.xinitrc file Locate the “# Add your own…