Build your own distro with Suse Studio

Countless are the times when I had wished that there was a linux distribution with exactly the stuff I need and none of the bloat. With the Alpha release of Suse Studio, that wish is about to be fulfilled.

Suse Studio allows you to customize OpenSUSE with just the software you need thru an easy to use web interface. The end result can be an ISO, Disk, VMware or Xen image.

WOW

OpenSUSE 11.0 GM on a Lenovo ThinkPad T61

Hardware Specifications :

Lenovo ThinkPad T61
Model : 7662CTO
CPU : Intel Core 2 DUO T7300 2.0 GHZ
Display : 14.1" 1440x900 NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M
Hard disk : 120 GB Hitachi HTS54161 5400 rpm
CD ROM : Matsushita CD ROM UJ-852
Memory : 4GB
Wireless : Atheros AR5BXB6 a/b/g
with Bluetooth, Express Card and PCMCIA slot
No fingerprint scanner and no SD/MMC card reader

Software :

OpenSUSE 11.0 Gold DVD downloaded from
http://software.opensuse.org/

OpenSUSE was downloaded via bittorrent and burned into a DVD. Clean installation thru the DVD took about 45 minutes to an hour excluding tweaking and other setup as outlined below.

I chose to install KDE 3.5.9.

Video :

Installation detected the resolution, size and color depth of the laptop. Other users could probably leave it as is but I decided to install the NVIDIA drivers thru one click install from the CyberOrg Blog

Wireless :

The installation detected the wireless card on the T61 and used the newer arth5k driver but for some reason it couldn't detect any available access points. Research reveals that the wireless card is suppose to be supported.

I decided to checkout MadWifi.org where I got the drivers for the card when I installed OpenSUSE 10.3 but as of install time, MadWifi.org hasn't released their wireless drivers for OpenSUSE 11 final. Only the drivers compiled against OpenSUSE 11 Beta are available.

I had no choice but to download, compile and install from source. I followed instructions from this page up to the "Installaing MadWifi" section.

I then reboot, logged in as root and launched YAST. I went to the Network Settings interface to edit the wireless card and changed the module name from ath5k to ath_pci.

Update 7/2/08 : I revisited Madwifi.org and found that they have released packages for OpenSUSE 11 GM.

Sound :

Worked out of the box but I had to right click on the kmix mixer applet, click on Select Master Channel and choose PCM.

Update 6/29/08: I just noticed that the built in mute and the volume up and volume down buttons are working. Back when I was using OpenSUSE 10.3, they weren't working too well.

Bluetooth :

The Fn+F5 key that activates bluetooth wasn't working after install so I had to go to Yast Software Management to install "hotkey". After installation the function key now works and can be used to activate or deactivate bluetooth on the laptop.

Suspend to Disk and Memory :

This is probably the most compelling reason for installing OpenSUSE 11 on my ThinkPad, at least for me. Both work after install with no tweaks or changes what so ever. I just got a bit confused because the Suspend options were not available in the menu. I had to suspend to disk and/or suspend to memory by right clicking the kpowersave applet.

Update 6/29/08: It seems suspend to memory was not working after all but there was an easy fix. It seems you need to have S2RAM_OPTS="-f -a3" in /usr/lib/pm-utils/defaults. Also it seems the suspend options were not in my menu because I was reusing an older home directory.

DeskTop Effects :

Unlike OpenSUSE 10.3 where you have to make a couple of modifications and symlinks, in OpenSUSE 11 Compiz is now better integrated. From the menu, search for "Desktop Effects", launch it and check the checkbox to enable.

First Impressions and Notes:

• Boot up and shutdown time are noticeably faster for me
• YAST is speedier, specially the Software Management module.
• Network Manager doesn't seem to be working too well for me. When I was using OpenSUSE 10.3 it detects if I'm on a wired network and automatically turns off wireless connections. It doesn't do that on OpenSUSE 11, instead it keeps both connections, the wired and the wireless, on.

NVIDIA Driver 169.07, Compiz and OpenSUSE 10.3

I left my PC to update overnight and I was surprised this morning after a reboot that Compiz isn't working anymore.

It seems the OpenSUSE updater upgraded the Nvidia drivers to version 169.07 but it broke Compiz in the process.

After some exhaustive googling I found the solution in this blog. It's in Italian and it seems meant for Ubuntu users but the code snippets were easy enough to follow and they worked for me on OpenSUSE 10.3

After installing the updates and rebooting, I noticed that compiz wasn't working anymore so I manually executed compiz from a gnome terminal and got this error ....

“No GLXFBConfig for default depth”

The solution according to M0rF3uS’ Ubuntu Blog is to execute the following in your terminal

LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 compiz -–no-libgl-fallback -–replace ccp &

Alternatively, if you use fusion-icon to launch compiz, open the file

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/FusionIcon/data.py

and locate the line with compiz_args.

edit it so that it looks like

compiz_args = [’–replace’, ‘–sm-disable’, ‘–ignore-desktop-hints’, ‘ccp’, ‘–no-libgl-fallback’]

Then, open a terminal and execute

LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 fusion-icon

UPDATE: This latest version of the NVIDIA drivers fixed the function keys that control the brightness on my T61. This means that I don't have to exit X windows anymore to adjust the brightness.

Pulse Audio the "Compiz for Audio" on OpenSUSE

Fedora 8 made waves with Pulse Audio when it was released. It was such a hit that other linux distributions are following suite. OpenSUSE 10.3 users (yours truly included) can now install Pulse Audio using the one click install.

So what's the big deal over Pulse Audio ?

1. With Pulse Audio, you can run multiple applications (e.g. skype, pidgin, flash video on firefox, Banshee) that use sound and you can hear them all at the same time, even go so far as to control the volume for each application.
2. Works with or over existing audio systems like ESD for Gnome and aRTS for KDE.
   
3. From Linux.com : "PulseAudio can route audio from multiple sources to multiple sinks, both locally and over the network. You can use it to combine multiple soundcards into a single virtual device, to forward music from one PC to another, or to share a single microphone as an input between multiple PCs." Cool !!!

It was an easy installation, the one click install did most of the work for me, although I still had to do a couple of additional things to get it to work. If you happen to have OpenSUSE 10.3 with GNOME, use the one click install and try the following to get Pulse Audio up and running :

1. After the one click install completes, login as root and edit /etc/group and add all the users who will use Pulse Audio on your system to the pulse group.
2. Reboot your system
3. Login as a desktop user, in the Gnome Control Center click Sessions.
4. In the Startup Programs tab click Add
5. Type PulseAudio Server on the name field.
6. Type pulseaudio & on the command field.
7. Locate and run the PulseAudio Device Chooser from your Application Browser
8. Logut and then login again.