October 2, 2009, 1:58 pm

A quick how to for using zypper to manage repositories in Opensuse.
You can specify existing repositories by their number in the list produced by zypper lr, alias, or URI. When using the numbers, make sure you always check zypper lr first, as the numbers may change after you made some changes to the repositories. Continue reading ‘Repository management with zypper in Opensuse 11.1’ »
October 1, 2009, 6:19 pm

Do you use GDM to log into Openbox on your OpenSuse box? In 11.1 I noticed a little hiccup.
In /usr/share/xsessions the openbox.desktop file resides and the option is there in GDM, and when you login, openbox comes right up. But nothing in your ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh file gets kicked off.
the application ‘openbox’ does not run autostart.sh, only ‘openbox-session’ does. So as root vim /usr/share/xsessions/openbox.desktop
and changes these lines:
Exec=openbox
TryExec=openbox
to
Exec=openbox-session
TryExec=openbox-session
Write-quit the file, log out and back in. Openbox should kickoff autostart.sh now.
September 26, 2009, 2:35 pm
September 25, 2009, 9:45 pm

The problem:
running the following:
$: /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox
gives you this following:
$: /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox
/usr/bin/VirtualBox: line 1: /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox: Permission denied.
The reason:
If SuSEconfig runs it resets the permissions of the files defined in /etc/permissions*.
The solution:
sudo chmod o+x /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox
Open the file > /etc/permissions.easy < with vi, goto the end and change the lines of VirtualBox from permission 4750 to 4755.
Save, Quit.
June 23, 2009, 10:21 am

Edit /etc/sysconfig/SuSEfirewall2:
#do not open ssh ports here
FW_SERVICES_EXT_TCP=""
FW_CONFIGURATIONS_EXT=""
#add this rule
FW_SERVICES_ACCEPT_EXT="0.0.0.0/0,tcp,22,,hitcount=3,blockseconds=60,recentname=ssh"
#Restart firewall:
rcSuSEfirewall2 restart
Now attacker will just have three attempts to break in.
January 6, 2009, 9:18 am

Alrighty, this will be a really short howto, but I would never have known I could do this if it hadn’t been mentioned offhand here, and so I figure others might benefit as well.
The discussion at the link above boils down to an opinion that the YAST “Software Management” button under KDE brings up a more usable and functional interface than in GNOME. I now share that opinion, and thanks to this switch I no longer pine for synaptic.
It’s super easy.
- As root do “zypper in yast2-qt-pkg” from a terminal session, *OR* use “Software Management” from within YAST to search for and install it.
- From within YAST, click “/etc/sysconfig Editor” in the “System” section.
- Expand System–>Yast2–>GUI–>WANTED_GUI
- Change the setting of WANTED_GUI from auto to qt.
- Click “Finish”, acknowledge any prompts, and you are done.
January 3, 2009, 11:10 am

This section does not apply to the Open Source Edition (OSE), as the OSE version does not have USB support.
This section applies only to the commercial version supplied as a binary file. The following instructions were tested using VirtualBox-1.5.0_24069_openSUSE102-2.x86_64.rpm.run on openSUSE 10.3 for x86_64. Before using these instructions be sure you have a successful, working install of VirtualBox. You will need to be logged in under the user ID of root to use these instructions.
Continue reading ‘Getting USB to work on the non-FOSS version of Virtualbox on OpenSuse 11.1’ »
January 3, 2009, 10:57 am

This HOWTO will explain how to install the Amazon MP3 Downloader application under openSUSE 11 (both 11.0 and 11.1). Unfortunately, as of this writing, Amazon only provides a package for openSUSE 10.3, which will not work directly with 11.0. But you can get the downloader working under 11 with some manual steps.
Continue reading ‘Amazon MP3 Downloader on openSUSE 11’ »
December 31, 2008, 9:44 am

We’ve all seen it:

That is the Penguin Grub theme and it was there in 10.2 10.3 11.0 and now in 11.1. But it’s not too hard to get rid of.
Continue reading ‘How to stop OpenSuse’s Christmas Grub Theme’ »
November 20, 2008, 8:20 am

To find which version of SUSE Linux are you running, look in the following file:
/etc/SuSE-release
Open the file in your desktop environment or use in a console
cat /etc/SuSE-release
which should show something similar to (x86-64 means 64-bit version):
SUSE LINUX 10.0 (X86-64) OSS
VERSION = 10.0