If you are looking for a free alternative to a commercial software product, www.osalt.com is a good place to start.
Basically, you lookup a commercial software product and they will suggest open source alternatives. The suggestions they offer are generally for high quality open source software only, so it can save you a lot of time compared to googling for an alternative.
I found this site via Natashas blog.
Add comment December 15th, 2006
Firefox 2 was released last week (press release), so it is time to experience the next generation browser.
To install Firefox 2 using Yast, add a new software source (in Yast select Software > Installation source):
Save changes.
Next select Software Management and search for “firefox”. You should get some matching packages. Check that their version number is something like 2.0.xxx. Select them and install.
Thanks to Justin Freeman for pointing to the RPMs (see the comments).
Happy browsing!
Add comment October 31st, 2006
I found a good short comparison of Ubuntu Linux and SUSE Linux over at Manufactured Environments. Well worth a read if you are considering switching your Linux distribution. Basically, Ubuntu is the better choice for fresh Linux converts, whereas SUSE gives power users all knobs and levers that they want.
Add comment October 28th, 2006
I have been using Mozilla Mail and later Thunderbird for my email for around five years. My mail folders contain over half a gigabyte of communication, that I definitely do not want to lose. So moving to Linux, I also had to move my mail.
While Thunderbird has features to import email and settings from other mail programs, like Outlook and Pegasus, it does not have an option to import from another Thunderbird installation.
My first attempt of just copying all the mail folders from my Windows profile to the Linux profile did not work as expected. Most of my mails got copied, but some older ones seemed to get lost.
After browsing a bit, I found an explanation of how to do it properly, namely by copying the whole profile instead of just the mail folders. This way, all settings and spam filter training, etc. also get copied - very nice!
First step is to set up a new profile in Thunderbird. This will get stored under “~/.thunderbird/xxxxxxxx.default” (where xxx is some kind of hash value). Next, copy all files from the Windows profile (under Documents and Settings/Application Data/Thunderbird/xxxxxx.default) into the Linux profile. This may or may not include your mail folders, which by default are stored under the profile, but may be customized. In my case, the mail folders were on another drive accessible to both Windows and Linux, so I just let them stay there.
In the profile data is a file called prefs.js. This include the setup of email and newsfeed accounts. In this file are paths to the mail folders. In the Windows profile, these point to something like C:\…\…\. These obviously do not work under Linux, so edit all occurrences to the new path, e.g. something like /home//.thunderbird/xxxxxxx.default/… Make sure the profile and mail folders are read and writeable.
Starting up Thunderbird, you should now see all you mail and settings.
16 comments September 23rd, 2006
In today’s shipment of updates to OpenSUSE was the latest version af Firefox, 1.5.0.7. As usual, I indiscriminately chose to get all available updates, including Firefox.
When the updater reported succesfully completing the update, I started Firefox. And waited. And waited. Though I could see the process running, no windows appeared. Hmm… Houston do we have a problem?
First step was to kill the running processes and then start Firefox from the command line. After printing a lot of stuff including a couple of failed assertions (!), Firefox stopped and apparently waited for a debugger to be attached.
Next step was to start Firefox in safe mode using the command line: “firefox -safe-mode”. This - among other things - prevents extensions from being loaded. Now the window came up. Figuring that it was a problem with one of my extensions, I disabled all the most conspicuous ones and restarted in normal mode. After a bit of trial and error, enabling and disabling extensions, I found the culprit: FireBug 0.4.
I believe I have run FireBug 0.4 on Firefox 1.5.0.7 under Windows at work, so it must be an issue that appears only under Linux or perhaps with the combination of extensions I have. Too bad, since FireBug is a cool extension for doing Ajax development.
Add comment September 23rd, 2006
This post does not have much to do with OpenSUSE, but it could be useful for people trying out OpenSUSE in a virtual machine using the free VMware Server virtualization product.
For some reason, console connections to running virtual machines can be really slow on VMware Server. For example, I have experienced that doing a simple ‘ls’ or ‘cat’ in console (no X server) would require 100% CPU utilization on the host for several seconds. I could literally see each line scroll by.
Part of the reason for the low performance is that SSL is enabled by default for console connections. By disabling SSL, I got much better performance, although still not to the level of VMware Workstation. Here is how to do it:
Note: by disabling SSL, you are lowering security, so please consider the implications before using this tip.
3 comments September 12th, 2006
Skype is the most well known VoIP (voice over IP) client available. The protocol used by Skype is proprietary, but a binary-only Linux client is available for download. If you are feeling adventurous and want all the features you can get your hands on, try the beta version. Beta or not, select the RPM version for SUSE 9 and later.
Installing Skype is straight-forward - just follow the guidance on the download page.
Before starting Skype, make sure your soundcard is configured properly. Usually the initial installation will have taken care of this. Check that you can play media files using your audio player. Obviously, with Skype you also need a microphone to talk the person at the other end, so you should also check that the microphone works. In my setup, the microphone was turned off by default. To enable it, open the volume control from the tray icon (alternatively via the menu Applications > Multimedia > Volume Control). Switch to the “Capture” tab and ensure the microphone volume is turned up and the little microphone icon is not overlayed with a red cross.
You should now be all set to make VoIP calls.
Add comment August 2nd, 2006
A clean vanilla OpenSUSE install comes with a lot of tools for all kinds of tasks. Some things, however, are not available. Notably, this includes potentially patent-infringing software, i.e. software which plays mp3, dvds, wmv etc. These are omitted to eliminate the risk of legal action.
A system that does not play mp3s is not much fun, so one of the first steps after installing OpenSUSE is to add all the missing codecs and software. A great place to go for tips on getting codecs, binary-only drivers and browser plugins installed is the Jem Report, a blog by Jem Matzan. Just follow his steps. If you installed with the extra OpenSUSE CD containing non-open source packages, you probably already have Java, Flash, RealPlayer and Acrobat installed, so you may skip those sections.
Once you have installed the codecs, your audio and video players should be able to handle mp3, wma etc. Kaffeine is a good video player, and amaroK is a cool audio player. Both are available on the OpenSUSE CDs/DVD.
Add comment July 25th, 2006
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