Online Install Guide for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
Novell created an install fest manual for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, featuring how to set up Desktop Effects (Xgl) using the SUSE Linux Enterprise driver download process.
June 28, 2006
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 preview edition now online
Nat Friedman announces that the preview edition of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 has become available for download.
June 27, 2006
Pictures from GUADEC, Day 1
This is the amazing David Reveman, maintainer of Xgl. David lost his wallet at the GUADEC beach party last night. I lent him 50 Euro to get him through the day. It was the least I could do.
This is JP Rosevear, who heads up an all-star team of Linux desktop hackers at Novell. Sorry for the bad focus, it couldn’t be helped: just after the shutter fell, JP dashed away screaming something about my last round of reports in bugzilla (20).
This was the first time I have met the mighty Aaron Bockover, brilliant maintainer of Banshee.
June 26, 2006
GUADEC, Day 1
Arrived this morning.
Lost luggage. Great conference.
Sitting with Michael Meeks in Miguel’s Mono talk.
Met Robert Love, Aaron Bockover, Joe Shaw, LugRadio boys, others.
No interviews yet.
More later.
June 24, 2006
Response to Ravi at “All about Linux”
Heya, Ravi:
Thanks for the solid coverage on your blog. I'd like to respond with a couple details as something of a response or extension to your post, if you don't mind.
The screenshots aren't mockups–they came from live, working code. I captured them straight from my laptop running a beta of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. If you cannot tell from my ongoing write-ups, I really dig this distribution.
A colleague of mine and I just ordered 7,500 DVD's copies of the 10.1 release of openSUSE. Novell does hand them out freely, but mostly at events. We also make openSUSE freely available for download from openSUSE.org.
With regard to free access, the thing Ubuntu has over openSUSE is their fulfillment program. Ubuntu's no-charge mailing program is nothing other than excellent execution on Canonical's part. You're right to admire that about Ubuntu. I'm sure that when Novell (and most likely, this ultimately means me) actually implement something similar, we will suffer the accusations of copycatting Ubuntu. Nevertheless, I'd like to make it happen. (Which is no guarantee that it will happen, since we still maintain shelf space in a lot of retail stores, and they may not appreciate us distributing openSUSE freely while asking them to sell it. Especially since we made a choice not to do pull out of retail, as Red Hat did when they launched Fedora.)
You said that you suspect that Novell is exclusively interested in the enterprise space. I hope that over time, the openSUSE project will demonstrate that, while Novell places a hard focus on enterprise Linux, Novell is a significant contributor to the community. Certainly the aresenal of open source developers (Jeremy Allison, Robert Love, Aaron Bockover, Joe Shaw, David Reveman, Miguel de Icaza, to name just a couple well known names) that Novell employs makes a strong proof point. My point is that a company probably cannot succeed at selling Linux without being a serious contributor of the community, and Novell is certainly that. In fact, many of the cool things that Ubuntu users now enjoy (such as Banshee, Xgl, and Beagle) are overseen by maintainers who work at Novell. Unfortunately, that often gets overlooked.
Anyway, thanks for the write up, and for following some of what Novell is working on lately.
Cheers,
Ted
June 23, 2006
Banshee Podcast Plugin
Unfortunately, this won't be in SLED10. Still, I can hardly wait…
Going Down to GUADEC
I am GUADEC-bound. Anyone I should interview for Novell Open Audio while I’m at the show?
You can let me know through openaudio/at/novell/dot/com.
Novell Open Audio: The Tango! Project
On the latest Novell Open Audio, we bring you cool cat Jakub Steiner of the Tango Project. Jakub tells about the design goals Tango and what it can do for applications and interfaces that choose to implement the Tango guidelines.
Of course, Dave Mair and Randy Goddard from support have a thing or two to say as well.
June 22, 2006
Beagle, Browsing, and Protecting Confidential Information
As part of my ongoing coverage of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 features, I offer this installment on Beagle, Browsing and "Confidential Financial Information." (The last term there does not start with a B, and is not a favorite category from Fark.com.) This comes from my "SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Under the Hood" presentation, to be given at the upcoming UKUUG conference.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 provides users with integrated "Desktop Search," which is built on Beagle. The name Beagle is mostly hidden in the product, since the name "Beagle" would not mean much to many users.
Most people think of Desktop Search being all about files. The underlying Beagle foundation provides search for more than just files. Search results will also recall instant messaging conversations, emails and appointments, and web pages.
Web pages might present a bit of concern to some users. Be assured that Desktop Search only indexes non-secure web pages. Desktop Search does not index encrypted web pages, so they will not be added to the search index for later recall. Even then, you will sometimes need to visit a site that has highly confidential information that prefer not to get indexed. Of course, I'm talking about certain non-encrypted financial information, usually represented in jpg format.
You can turn off the Firefox plugin by clicking the Beagle plugin icon that shows up in the bottom-right of Firefox's application window:
When disabled, it indicates that it is disabled:
[Note: By the time SLED10 releases, the icon may change, as I filed a bug to have it changed today. I'm not sure whether it will be accepted or not.]
Additionally, you may store certain confidential data files on your computer (some that are so confidential that you don't even want your spouse to find them). Fortunately, you can configure Desktop Search to exclude these from indexing. Start in the Control Center and find Search Settings:
This is the Search Preferences main page. From here, switch to the Indexing tab:
On the indexing tab, you can add additional folders, as I have done with my Windows partition (I still use Windows for downloading Audible.com content). Under "Privacy," you can see how I have excluded my "Financials" folder from search indexing:
When you click the "Add" button, you can exclude a folder ("Directory Path"), a filename pattern (like *.mpeg, which is one of the common extensions used on financial data files), and Mail Folders (from Evolution):
And that's that on some of the interfaces for configuring Desktop Search.
Song of the Day
Ever have one of those days where you cannot get a song out of your head? I ask of my readers, any guess what song I might be stuck on today?
June 21, 2006
New GNOME Status Notifications
More stuff from SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10…
As a laptop user, I like to know when a noteworthy event occurs on my system, such as a network connection or a power event. In SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, the events appear on the desktop like this (click for the full 1024×768 view):
The notice appears at the time of the event, then fades out after a couple of seconds. (I’ll note that the fade away is made very graceful by Xgl/Compiz’s fade effect.)
Close up, the notices look like this:
As multiple notices come in, say a low battery warning or the AC power becomes unplugged, any other notices that have not yet cleared get bumped up by the incoming notice. Looks a bit like this:
Overall, the net effect is a smooth and conservative method for informing the user about important events on their system.
___
In related news for people who live and die by the performance of their laptops, Robert Love has been making great strides to liberate us from the wall-tether. His superb work on wireless and battery life are making life on SUSE Linux Desktop 10 so much better than on previous distributions, SUSE-based or not. For example, check out these posts from Robert to see some of the stuff he has recently done for wireless:
- NetworkManager managing four wireless cards at once
- Explanation of how NetworkManager uses paired SSID+MAC address of wireless access points in trusted lists, which prevents simple spoofing of trusted networks (LINKSYS or NETGEAR, for example)
- Support for wireless crypto, including WPA.
[Update 28JUN06: My bad. Robert tells me that he himself has done little work on battery life. It happened elsewhere.]
June 20, 2006
GIMP Gets Refreshed with Tango Stylings
Jakub Steiner and team have done a beautiful job applying the Tango Project's icon theme to the GIMP. The results are really beautiful.
Incidentally, Jakub will be on the next edition of Novell Open Audio. If you're not aware of the amazing work Jakub is doing, you should be. His team is helping to unify OSS applications under a common look and feel. Did I mention that the results are beautiful?
Me on the Linux Link Tech Show?
Pat Davila and I have been emailing about having me join the guys on the Linux Link Tech Show some time. If all works out, that time will be tomorrow at 8:30 PM EDT. Thirty minutes later, some of the guys from Gentoo will be on, so I'll probably take my leave before then in order to give over the floor to Gentoo.
InfoWorld: Novell hits a desktop home run with SLED 10
"For the forthcoming SLED (Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop) 10, Novell went back to the drawing board to rethink what makes a good desktop. The result is extremely impressive… SLED 10 is hands down the most polished desktop Linux distribution I've ever used — and that includes Ubuntu."
For those of you who are looking forward to SLED10, please help us keep up our recent digg momentum by generously digging this one, too.
–Rev
June 19, 2006
I am Klin-Tohn
So I says to myself, I says, "Alright, Mauricio, I'll play your silly game."
(Mauricio is one of the PlanetSUSE bloggers who apparently aspires to gas his own people.)
As it turns out I'm like…
What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com
Can somebody please tell me whether I'm upset or pleased at this news?
