openSUSE 11.0 was the best Linux distribution I’ve ever used.  I was hoping openSUSE 11.1 would continue the great strides of late, but it’s a bit of a mixed bag.  One of the most frustrating things for me is that support for remote access is falling by the wayside.  VNC used to be better integrated with openSUSE, but they removed integrated support in favor of KDE’s krfb, which is badly broken.  The package management in openSUSE 11.0 and 11.1 is enough to suggest upgrading if you’re using an older version – it is absolutely great, especially for those of us who have been around long enough to see the pains it’s gone through.  If you want to get up and running with openSUSE 11.1 then there are likely a few customizations you’ll want to make.

Upgrade to KDE 4.2

It’d be nice if openSUSE and KDE could sync up their release schedules a bit better.  KDE 4.2 came out a month or so after openSUSE 11.1 and you’ll likely want the upgrade.  I experienced some annoying but not critical bugs with the version that shipped.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Specify URL”
4. Enter: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Factory:/Desktop/openSUSE_Factory/
5. Also add: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Qt/openSUSE_Factory/
6. Uncheck “Dependencies” > “Autocheck”
7. Do a search for QT and another for KDE
8. Check all the boxes where “Installed (Available)” is blue
9. Recheck “Dependencies” > “Autocheck” and resolve any dependency problems
10. Hit “Accept” to install the selected packages

Setup Multimedia

This is a perennial setup step on Linux distributions.  We’ll install the codecs needed to watch DVDs, handle MP3s, etc.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “Packman Repository” and “VideoLan Repository”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Install libffmepg0 and libdvdcss.  Also, if you want to be able to watch ASF streams you should install mplayer-plugin.
7. Start Kaffeine and tell it to handle mms and rtsp streams when it asks

Install NVIDIA drivers

If you have an NVIDIA card, then you’ll want to install the drivers.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “NVIDIA Repository”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Install “nvidia-gfxGO2-kmp-default”

Install CD Ripper

For some reason, openSUSE 11.1 no longer ships with KAudioCreator installed by default.  My guess would be that it hasn’t been ported to KDE4 yet, but it’s nice to have, so we’ll go ahead and install it anyway.  We’ll also change KAudioCreator’s (stupid) default setting of not looking up CDDB information that hasn’t been cached on the local system.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “openSUSE BuildService – KDE:Community”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Install “kdemultimedia3-CD”
7. Open kaudiocreator
8. Select “Settings” > “Configure KAudioCreator …” > “CDDB”
9. Set lookup to “Cache and remote”

Upgrade WINE

WINE is continuing to evolve and getting closer every day to reaching maturity.  You’ll likely want the latest version instead of the one that was the latest when openSUSE shipped.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “openSUSE BuildService – Wine CVS Builds”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Do a search for wine and click the check mark until version upgrade is selected

Setup a static IP address

Having a static IP address is very nice when you want to remote desktop to your server or access it in some other way without worrying about what the IP address is.  There may also need to be some configuration done on your router for this one.  Or you may prefer to investigate DHCP reservations if your router supports them.

1. YaST > “Network Devices” > “Network Settings”
2. Under “Overview”, select your network card and click “Edit”
3. Enter your static IP (besure to also enter DNS and gateway information)
4. Hit save

Setup remote desktop through NX

The two main remote desktop softwares for Linux are VLC and NX.  NX is much faster, but unfortunately I’ve had some problems with desktop sharing with 11.1 vs. 11.0.  If you get 11.1 to shadow properly then please let me know.  In addition to installing NX, we’ll also open the corresponding port in the firewall so that we can connect from another machine.

1. Download the NX Linux packages
2. Run “rpm -iv nxclient-3.3.0-3.i386.rpm”, “rpm -iv nxnode-3.3.0-3.i386.rpm”, and “rpm -iv nxserver-3.3.0-3.i386.rpm”
3. Run “/usr/NX/scripts/setup/nxserver –install”
4. Run “/usr/NX/bin/nxserver –keygen”
5. In your NX client, open “Configure…” > “General” tab > “Key …”
6. Copy the contents of “/usr/NX/share/keys/default.id_dsa.key” into the key window and save it
7. Open “/usr/NX/etc/server.cfg”
8. Change line 563 from ‘EnableSessionShadowingAuthorization = “1″‘ to ‘EnableSessionShadowingAuthorization = “0″‘ which will enable you to select “Shadow” in the client under the “General” tab’s “Desktop” framebox if you’d like to do desktop sharing
9. YaST > “Security and Users” > “Firewall” > “Allowed Services”
10. Allow “Secure Shell Server”

Setup Network File Share using Samba

Samba allows you to share files on your computer with others on the network.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
2. Install “samba” if it is not already installed
3. YaST > “Network Services” > “Samba Server”
4. Tell it to unblock the firewall
5. Change sharing settings as you’d like and hit “Finish”
6. Add a user to Samba by running “smbpasswd -a username” where username is the user you’d like to create.
7. Connect from your Windows machine by right clicking “My Computer” and browsing your network.  If you have trouble connecting you might also try opening a “Run…” dialog off the start menu and typing in your IP address with two leading slashes “\\192.168.10.x”

I’ve connected both a Syntax Olevia and an LG TV to my openSUSE desktop.  Neither have worked well because they caused the default font size to be unusably large.  I’m talking gigantically huge, like only a few letters on the screen at any one time.  The solution is to modify your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.  In the Monitor Section you need to add the following:

Option “UseEDIDDPI” “FALSE”

That’s because these TVs apparently lie to the operating system about their dimensions.  Then change the DisplaySize using the following formula:

DisplaySize = (pixels/desiredDPI)*25.4

So, if I want to run at 96 DPI and 1366×768 resolution then I would set the following in my xorg.conf:

DisplaySize 361 203

Let me start off by saying that openSUSE 11.0 is the best Linux distribution I have ever used.  There are some rough edges surrounding KDE 4, but the package management in openSUSE 11.0 makes huge strides over that offered in previous versions.  If you want to get up and running with openSUSE 11.0 then there are likely a few customizations you’ll want to make.

Setup Multimedia

This is a perennial setup step on Linux distributions.  We’ll install the codecs needed to watch DVDs, handle MP3s, etc.  We’ll also setup firefox to be able to handle Windows media streams.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “Packman Repository” and “VideoLan Repository”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Uninstall xine-lib and install libxine1, w32codec-all, libdvdcss, k3b-codecs, and mplayerplug-in
7. Open Firefox and type “about:config” into the address bar
8. Right Click > “New” > “String”
9. Enter “network.protocol-handler.app.mms”
10. Enter “/opt/kde3/bin/kaffeine” (output of “which kaffeine” at command line)

Install NVIDIA drivers

If you have an NVIDIA card, then you’ll want to install the drivers.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “NVIDIA Repository”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Install “nvidia-gfxGO1-kmp-default”

Install CD ripper and ID3 tagger

For some reason, openSUSE 11.0 no longer ships with KAudioCreator or an ID3 tagger installed by default.  My guess would be that they haven’t been ported to KDE4 yet, but they’re nice to have, so we’ll go ahead and install them anyway.  We’ll also change KAudioCreator’s (stupid) default setting of not looking up CDDB information that hasn’t been cached on the local system.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “openSUSE BuildService – KDE:Community”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Install “kid3″ and “kdemultimedia3-CD”
7. Open kaudiocreator
8. Select “Settings” > “Configure KAudioCreator …” > “CDDB”
9. Set lookup to “Cache and remote”

Upgrade WINE

WINE is continuing to evolve and getting closer every day to reaching maturity.  You’ll likely want the latest version instead of the one that was the latest when openSUSE shipped.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “openSUSE BuildService – Wine CVS Builds”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Do a search for wine and click the check mark until version upgrade is selected

Setup a static IP address

Having a static IP address is very nice when you want to remote desktop to your server or access it in some other way without worrying about what the IP address is.  There may also need to be some configuration done on your router for this one.  Or you may prefer to investigate DHCP reservations if your router supports them.

1. YaST > “Network Devices” > “Network Settings”
2. Under “Overview”, select your network card and click “Edit”
3. Enter your static IP and save it

Setup remote desktop through NX

The two main remote desktop softwares for Linux are VLC and NX.  NX is much faster and KDE’s VLC server, KRfb, is broken openSUSE 11.0.  An NX server ships with openSUSE 11.0, but we want to install at least version 3.0 in order to do desktop sharing.  We’ll also open the SSH (NX is built on top of SSH) port in the firewall so that we can connect from another machine.

1. Download the NX Linux packages
2. Run “rpm -iv nxclient-3.1.0-2.i386.rpm”, “rpm -iv nxnode-3.1.0-3.i386.rpm”, and “rpm -iv nxserver-3.1.0-2.i386.rpm”
3. Run “/usr/NX/scripts/setup/nxserver –install”
4. Run “/usr/NX/bin/nxserver –keygen”
5. In your NX client, open “Configure…” > “General” tab > “Key …”
6. Copy the contents of “/usr/NX/share/keys/default.id_dsa.key” into the key window and save it
7. Open “/usr/NX/etc/server.cfg”
8. Change line 563 from ‘EnableSessionShadowingAuthorization = “1″‘ to ‘EnableSessionShadowingAuthorization = “0″‘ which will enable you to select “Shadow” in the client under the “General” tab’s “Desktop” framebox if you’d like to do desktop sharing
9. YaST > “Security and Users” > “Firewall” > “Allowed Services”
10. Allow “Secure Shell Server”

Setup Network File Share using Samba

Samba allows you to share files on your computer with others on the network.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
2. Install “samba” if it is not already installed
3. YaST > “Network Services” > “Samba Server”
4. Change sharing settings as you’d like and hit “Finish”
5. Add a user to Samba by running “smbpasswd -a username” where username is the user you’d like to create.
6. YaST > “Security and Users” > “Firewall” > “Allowed Services”
7. Allow “Samba Server”