May 2006 - openSUSE Users - openSUSE Mailing Lists

bug fix support by community
by jdd 18 Jul '06

18 Jul '06

I wonder If we a numerous enough do do so right now, but it could be an idea to go. I beleive that in the near future the Novell Programmers will be very busy working on the new distributions, as they do with 10.1 right now. one of the consequencies is that the debugging of the stable version is short. I know that security debugging is done (and I think well done), but, specially, Yats bugfixes are no more wellcome. However there are still many. many cosmetic (typos, translations), some of them worst (problems in adding inst-sources). In the same time, new SUSE Linux version are more and more hardware demanding. Using 10.0 on a 5 years computer is pretty straight forward, 10.1 is questionable, 10.2 or 3 probably not possible if all goes as it do now (5 years ago, 128Mb ram was current, 256Mb very high end). I understand why this is. But I try to keep all this nice hardware living and I'll hate to revert to debian :-((( I understand also that user using, say, SUSE 9.0 (or 10.0 two years in the future) can afford to update manually the problematics packages (kernel...) for security reason. I know some people use still 7.x versions. But nobody can fix yast alone :() why not us? Yast is a fine piece of code, but a big part is scripts, translations are texts files, openSUSE builder should ease the process. So could the community be more involved in this? As I am, I could take the french translation part and be assigned the translation fix (for example) from bugzilla. what do you think of the idea (the setup is to be discussed after if necessary) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

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SCPM profiles and network proxy settings
by Jerry Feldman 17 Jul '06

17 Jul '06

I'm primarily interested in changing the Firefox proxy settings with scpm. One way to do this is to have a script make the appropriate changes to the prefs.js. The global proxy is set in sysconfig which is changed by scpm. -- Jerry Feldman <gaf(a)blu.org> Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

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Voice Answering Machine and Fax Programs
by Ralph Ellis 27 Jun '06

27 Jun '06

I currently use a fax program, Fax2Send, to handle my computer's faxes but I would like to get a program that supports both voice mail and faxing. There are a dozen or so programs out there that handle this in some way including some that are just manual tinkering with Hylafax and Vgetty. I have read the setup materials for going the manual route but I would prefer having a more user friendly program to do this. Can anyone recommend a Linux voice mail/fax program that has worked well for them. I don't mind buying one commercially as well. Sometimes it is worth the money to cut down on the hassle factor of a manual setup. Thanks in advance Ralph Ellis

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One showstopper down..... (10.1)
by Bruce Marshall 26 Jun '06

26 Jun '06

Damn... gotta find something else to bitch about. I've been complaining about not being able to find a copy of the slamr.ko module which is needed to drive the winmodem in my Thinkpad X30. Never did find one but I found a solution... much better too. Having spent two days on this project and googling at least 20 times for "slamr Suse" and such, I finally came across someone who tried a different approach, and although in what I read he still had a minor problem, I thought I would give it a go. The old solution was to: modprobe slamr slmodemd & where slamr was the module that access the hardware (low-level) and slmodemd is the piece that provides the high-level functions of the modem. The solution (at least for me?) modprobe snd-intel8x0m slmodemd -alsa -c USA hw:1 & which accomplishes the same thing and is used in the same fashion. Works like a charm. And I suspect it might work for winmodems from other vendors too if you first load the appropriate module for that vendors chipset and then run slmodemd. Can't prove that but it seems reasonable. In any event, this is a much better solution than the original. But I still think Novell pulled the plug too soon on a lot of people with similar or other problems with non-gpl code and with no notification of what was going to be happening. I've spent at least 5 full days shooting problems with 10.1. No one can tell me that it is a super, easy thing to install. It's been a lot of dog-work and sleuthing from someone who has 45 years of computing experience and it took far too much work to accomplish. So there..... BLEAH!!!!

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Printing problems
by Art Fore 19 Jun '06

19 Jun '06

These printing problems are about to drive me up the wall in Suse 10. Don't know if it is Suse 10 or Linux in general. I open a PDF file in Opera which opens KPDF. When I print, it prints A4 eventhough the printer is setup for letter in Yast, CUPS, and KDE print manager and the file itself is a letter size document. If I save the file, and open it in Acrobat, it prints OK, but openening it in KPF still wants to print A4. Why is this? Is there some hidden configuration file somewhere I am not aware of? Art

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Palm sync with Kontact - out of the box on Suse 10?
by Janus 16 Jun '06

16 Jun '06

I never managed to sync my Palm with Kontact. My last attempt was with SuSE 9.1. Has anyone succeeded in synchronising their Palm (contacts, calender and to-dos) with the relevant applications in Kontact? Is it "out of the box" with SuSE 10? I have a Palm Tungsten E. Janus -- Roskilde University, Denmark. Department of Technology and Social Science. International Development Studies. ESST - Society, Science and Technology in Europe.

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DMA Nightlmare on SuSE 10.x Revisited
by Basil Chupin 14 Jun '06

14 Jun '06

Unlike on SuSE 10.0 where I could at least manually force SuSE to set DMA for my DVD ROM and the DVD burner, on SuSE 10.1 even this avenue of irriatation has been taken away from me :-( . I now cannot set the DMA for either unit at all - period! I have a LG GDR8164B, using UDMA 2, as the DVD/CD reader and a PIONEER 110 as the burner - both no more than 6 months or so old. The are installed as /dev/hdb and /dev/hdd, respectively (hda and hdb are Maxtor HDs). Doing /sbin/hdparm for both produces the following reault and error: hdb hdd IO_support = 1 (32-bit) IO_support = 1 (32-bit) unmasking = 1 (on) unmasking = 1 (on) using_dma = 0 (off) using_dma = 0 (off) keepsettings = 0 (off) keepsettings = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 1024 (on) readahead = 1024 (on) HDIO_GETGEO failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device [Same error <-- here] In /etc/sysconfig/ide I have the FORCE DMA for both these devices set - but this has no affect, the stetement is ignored. Going to Yast Control Centre and setting the DMA for these devices produces the error message(s): QUOTE Cannot set required mode '%1 for device %2' UNQUOTE In SuSE 10.0 at least I didn't get this error message(s) and I was able to force the DMA before using the DVD reader but now, in 10.1, I cannot. Does SuSE/Novell have an explanation for this and a solution? Cheers. -- All answers questioned here.

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More on the Java Licence
by kai 12 Jun '06

12 Jun '06

There was a question about the Java licence the other day. Here's an interesting article on it, particularly in regards to Red Hat. http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/05/18/red_hat_sun_java_license/ Sun Microsystems' new GNU/Linux-friendly Java license does not go far enough for Red Hat. It says Sun should have open-sourced Java instead. Brian Stevens, Red Hat CTO, told The Register Sun should open-source its Java Virtual Machine (JVM) (which is licensed by Red Hat) so developers can improve the software's real-time capabilities. <continued> Oh, and on that note - KDE has joined the ODF alliance - http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/19/1931228 - why? Because they're Kool! :) -- kai - www.perfectreign.com www.livebeans.com - the new NetBeans community 43...for those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.

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Recover Deleted Files?
by David Barton 09 Jun '06

09 Jun '06

Hi Guys, I am in serious strife and I could really use some advice. Scenario: 2 x 120Gb HDD hda1 - reiserfs SuSE 10.1 \ hda2 - reiserfs SuSE 10.1 \home hda3 - FAT32 (No Windows - just common storage) hdb1 - swap hdb2 - reiserfs SuSE 9.3 I wanted to check out 10.1, so I wiped the original Windows partition on hda and installed the default 10.1 options on hda1 & 2. After reading the many negative postings here and my own disappointment, I was about to ditch 10.1 in the too hard basket when I stumbled on Ralph Ellis's post about the "packagemanagement-update-test" fix. So I thought "What the heck" I've got nothing to loose and "bingo" it worked. My previous stuffing around had left me with a fairly crappy user configuration, so I created a dummy user, switched to root and attempted to deleted my original 10.1 user account, with delete user data checked :_(( What I forgotten was that I had copied some of my 9.3 home stuff over to my 10.1 home directory and I now have 2 completely empty partitions (namely hda2 - FAT32 and hdb2 reiserfs). I am not that bothered about the 9.3 stuff that was on hdb2 (anything of importance was backed up), but there were a few really important things on the FAT32 partition that I would, if possible, like to recover. Although I have never used (or needed) it before, I am aware that there is recovery software out there. Can anyone here suggest or recommend a package (open source or commercial, I don't care) that might help get me out of this predicament. Thanks in advance. Dave

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Re: [SLE] SuSE 10.1 and Reiser4?
by lerninlinux＠comcast.net 09 Jun '06

09 Jun '06

-------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Michael James <Michael.James(a)csiro.au> > On Wed, 17 May 2006 02:43 pm, Sbs Bofh wrote: > > I can't find the Reiser4 tools in SuSE 10.1. > > They don't seem to be on the CDs. > > Are they included on the DVD? > > > > I've been running Reiser4 happily on my SuSE 10.0 servers > > for three months, performance is great and reliability 100%. > > It's a bit of a step backwards > > if Reiser4 has been removed from 10.1 :-( > > https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=140935 states: > > We have no intention of adding reiser4 at this time. > We are seriously cutting down on the number of > out of tree kernel code we include in our product. > > This news is past bad, it's terrible. > > No reiser4progs, no reiser4 module, not in 10.1 > and not even on the rescue CD! > > This means that if you compile your own reiser4 module, > any kernel upgrade on a system with a reiser4 root filesystem, > will break it so bad, the rescue system won't be able to fix it. > > This news is past bad, it's terrible. > Effectively it hasn't just excluded reiser4 it's banned it. > > We have to work to get this reversed, or worked around. > Who wants to help build 10.1 RPMs of: > reiser4progs, reiser4mods, and reiser4rescue ? > > michaelj > I reserve the right to judge this, until the box set is out, I would expect it to be included in that.

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