My current desktop is openSUSE 13.1

My current system runs openSUSE 13.1

Here are my reasons for choosing openSUSE

KDE 4.11.5

Desktop optimized kernel

Powerful system administration tool called YAST like control panel of windows, it allows controlling almost everything with a mouse click!

Default theme is looking beautiful

Easily install all codecs from packman repository (to install mp3 and movie codecs) and nvidia drivers

For nvidia drivers, click the link under 13.1 and it adds repository and offers nvidia installation

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers

For multimedia

http://opensuse-guide.org/codecs.php

For ZFS on linux, I installed from software.opensuse.org, by searching ZFS (how easy) and clicking (one click install)

http://software.opensuse.org/package/zfsonlinux-zfs

I installed openSUSE 13.1 with btrfs filesystem for root and home partitions. For boot partition I used ext4 filesystem. 

btrfs is still not defined stable by linux kernel, but I think it is much better supported by suse linux. I am having my data backups in ZFS and my normal files in btrfs. Both are considered next gen filesystems

To know more about the power of these two filesystems, follow http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/bitrot-and-atomic-cows-inside-next-gen-filesystems/

Problems faced and how I fixed them

Networking after install was not working, I went to YAST --> Network Settings --> Global Options --> Choose "User Controlled with Network Manager" and gave OK

I faced video tearing in KDE with nvidia gtx 650 card. I fixed it by creating a new file to enable nvidia triple buffering. With 1 GB dedicated graphics card memory, enabling triple buffering is ideal.

To enable triple buffering, edit 50-device.conf as root and reboot, see below screenshot to see how the file looks after editing

sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf

and add

Section "Device"

        Identifier "Default Device"

        Driver "nvidia"

        Option "TripleBuffer" "True"

EndSection

To verify if triple buffering is enabled after rebooting, check 

cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep -i triple

In fact the videos I watched after enabling triple buffering are stunning, I repeat stunning. The quality of the videos make me doubt if I watched those videos earlier!

I modified KDE desktop effects settings to do a fullscene repaint, see the screenshot below

Press Start Menu --> Configure Desktop -->Desktop Effects --> Advanced -->  Tearing Prevention (VSync) --> Full scene repaints

The next thing I did is deleted pulseaudio and rebooted, now the sound I hear is having no distortions (I dont like pulseaudio)

After deleting pulseaudio, the output of zypper (apt like software installation command line tool and much easier)

sudo zypper search pulseaudio

Installed chromium and latest inbuilt flash player  of chrome called pepper flash as follows

sudo zypper install chromium chromium-ffmpeg chromium-pepper-flash chromium-pdf-plugin chromium-desktop-kde

Zypper --> software installation command line tool

to search for software use sudo zypper search

to install new software use sudo zypper install  

to remove software use sudo zypper remove

To upgrade new software, just click install when apper offers software updates in notification

I installed java, g++, clang ... all with my mouse from YAST --> Software Management, I already like it a lot

and KDE 4.11.5, it is awesome, I enabled cube effect in desktop effects (Menu --> Configure Desktop --> Desktop Effects, second tab, try various stuff, they are good eye candy)

Some of the very best software

One of the best torrent software for torrents --> KTorrent

The best dvd writing software --> K3b

One of the best music player --> Amarok

Some of the best browsers --> Firefox (installed by default), Chromium (install it)

One of the best environments --> KDE

One of the best file managers --> Dolphin

One of the best terminals --> Konsole 

Why will I not like it ?

Follow, http://opensuse-guide.org/

It is different kind of learning and I think it is worth it, know why ?

It has 3 years support, no logging your keystroke nonsense, no online search (you know what I mean ...)

Trying freebsd 10

After numerous linux hops, I am trying freebsd 10. I should say it is really fun. I found it quite easy and it is like Arch linux

My main idea to try and use freebsd as much as possible is not because of its UI or geekiness, I want its ZFS ....

I managed to install freebsd 10 rc1 in my 2 TB harddisk. Already I have all my data in ZFS pools in another harddisk. I installed this OS with ZFS filesystem. Rest of configuration, I am slowly learning and it looks so very similar to Arch linux

Now trying to install vlc, and learning ports. This is awesome, I am building vlc for the first time. Love it till now, it keeps me engaged

Got sound working, able to check processor temperature, able to mount my ZFS pools, able to use firefox, able to use nvidia card, able to use internet ...

and played mp3 from command line till vlc builds

This is new learning, I am thinking of using it till btrfs becomes stable in linux

Ubuntu 13.10 seems to be very fast

I have been testing Ubuntu 13.10 daily image from

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/

I have been testing Ubuntu 13.10 daily image for past 3 days. Todays image (14/Oct/2013) seems to be faster than earlier images and seems to be faster than any versions of Ubuntu, it could be a blindfold thing to say so. But perceptions may deceive, Ubuntu is so very responsive, think it is to do with snappiness of unity.

Waiting for the release of Ubuntu 13.10 to happen and to install it, I am being curious

How I fixed nvidia kepler video tearing in Ubuntu 12.04 Unity

Introduction

Here is  my previous rant on video tearing of GTX 650 card in linux

Tearing

With default nouveau driver in Ubuntu videos teared badly. After installing proprietary nvidia driver videos teared badly. 

I guess the reason of tearing is graphics card is way faster in delivering frames which monitor can't match to display. In technical terms it is called a sync issue or whatever. See Screen Tearing in Wikipedia to know more

The Fix

You should be running proprietary nvidia driver in linux, nouveau won't help

It is simple fix asking the window manager to request fullscreen repainting whenever some repaint is required. With KDE 4.11 this option is there.

In Unity this is done as follows in screenshots

Install Compiz settings

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Search Compiz in unity dash

Launch Compiz and select Utility --> Workarounds

Tick "Force fullscreen redraws (buffer swap) on repaint"

By default vsync is enabled in nvidia-settings, if not enable it

Now reboot and enjoy (hopefully it works for you like it did for me)

Custom 64bit Kernel 3.11 optimized for i7

Introduction

After long time, I am using Ubuntu 12.04.3 for a weeks time. Was stuck in different OS and back to Ubuntu and using Kernel 3.10 optimized for i7

Kernel 3.11

Hearing some driver improvements for open source radeon driver. Could not test it as I dont own AMD Radeon card anymore. But here I have built the kernel for someone to give it a try

For more changes about kernel 3.11 see here

I based my kernel compilation based on my earlier article with some modifications

Here is the script I used as a text file

Here are the binaries for testing 

Kernel 3.11 Image optimized for i7

Kernel 3.11 Headers for i7

Kernel 3.11 common headers

Here is the SHA256SUMS of the above

68415b5dc7d07897dc742b84d286071b7798ea14e9a612ad7232f0515d93f467  linux-headers-3.11.0-031100_3.11.0-031100.201309021735_all.deb

f75e109a856bcbc14710dcf5fcb5d97d7018f72e0915342ac26a3e2e808197e5  linux-headers-3.11.0-031100-i7_3.11.0-031100.201309021735_amd64.deb

9ed16a8dfba297c30b5d4bd46d351bc8c31fa5f0bcbac1edd5cd4a2a90f6f7a5  linux-image-3.11.0-031100-i7_3.11.0-031100.201309021735_amd64.deb

c7afa0bae884231b114a517838dd1699815a478c4e6aa5fe99427aee121f2bfb  Kernel3.11Build.txt

The script is self explanatory (and boring to explain)

Screenshot

Return of the king (Sony)

The latest jellybean update given to Xperia S is superb.

How they squashed every little bug (as far as I know), it is amazing. There is no repainting, the battery is wonderful ... what a normal guy would expect from a phone, it works (browsing, checking emails, apps, games, calls, .... )

It is fast, crisp, much better than before, It feels like a new phone now.

Renewing my faith in Japanese, :)

Indeed, it is Return of King, The real return of Sony in mobile world

Kudos Sony and Thanks

Want fresh air

Months back, I lost my old nvidia GTX 460 graphics card when I was trying a beta version of nvidia binary driver.

Then I changed to an ATI card and was very much unhappy that linux drivers were not running properly like what I used to get in GTX 460, so gave it to my nephew as he has windows and got a GTX 650

Thought everything will be breeze, how wrong I was

It was worser than AMD ATI  radeon card in linux, what ?

Initially the colors were vivid and it all looked nice with linux. The moment I played youtube videos or any videos it started tearing which was reported by many nvidia linux users across web.

Temporarily I installed Windows 8.1 Preview release. Wow, the graphics card showed its power and all the videos run fine, youtube runs fine.

I want to install linux back as I am feeling out of water without its terminal, its commands (I dont like using virtualization much). I dont feel much time is left for me to install and experiment due to various other things. Another thing, it throws me out of balance the various unstable ui changes happening around linux. It looks like a never ending beta.

Waiting for fresh nvidia drivers to land ... to come back to linux

Till then maybe I should be satisfied with running live cds and linux inside virtual box or vmware

Installing Kubuntu 13.04

Once a user of debian (based operating system), it brings back the user to debian based OS again and again

Though openSUSE 12.3 was good, it is my curiosity and familiarity with debian based distros driving me to wipe and install Kubuntu (anyhow I can install suse again :) )


Here are the two screenshots of Kubuntu 13.04 with wallpaper changed from "Get New Wallpapers" and theme modified to oxygen

One good thing about Kubuntu is rekonq browser which is deeply integrated into KDE unlike firefox

I am finding Kubuntu to be as easy as openSUSE or even better. I think it is all to do with KDE 4.10 which rocks (I am quite uncomfortable with unity because it does not allow opening apps multiple times unless I press shift key unlike Kubuntu which is quite a joy to use)

openSUSE 12.3 KDE looks stunning

openSUSE 12.3 is very responsive. Icons are looking attractive and the theme is pleasing to the eyes.


Here are the screenshots, I am going to install this tonight or this week end

Default desktop looks pleasing

Menus are snappy, so is dolphin, net browsing is extremely fast, konsole works to your command!

Kernel is 3.7.10, but built optimized and has PREEMPT support like android kernels. Everything works blazing fast as if this is a new system, see the faint glow around the edges, theming is excellent

Comes with java 1.7 runtime

 

 Firefox looks very well integrated into KDE

 openSUSE 12.3 defaults to the most recent KDE 4.10

Update: I installed openSUSE 12.3 as my primary OS in my primary computer. It is simply mind blowing operating system. Still exploring. Everything works with a click of my mouse. Thanks openSUSE 12.3

Unlock Xperia S bootloader from Ubuntu 12.04

Introduction

I tried to unlock bootloader from Windows 8 and in vain. Windows 8 installed some drivers for fastboot and never allowed an option

Now it became interesting, I came to my Ubuntu system and started exploring

After getting the unlock key from sonymobile, I tried in Windows 8. It did not work, then came to Ubuntu 12.04 and it worked happily.

To get the unlock key for your Xperia S (or some other xperia mobile) follow upto 7 steps

http://unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com/instructions

From 8th step, instructions for applying the unlock key to unlock your phone in Windows, but no explanation of how it is done in Ubuntu. So here I explain what I tried and what worked

Before going into what I am talking, see my earlier article on how to install Flashtool in Ubuntu 12.04

and come here. In brief, download flashtool, extract. Have ia32-libs installed and have udev rules 

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0fce", SYSFS{idProduct}=="*", MODE="0777"

Using Fastboot from Ubuntu to Unlock 

After extracting Flashtool, go into flashtool folder from file browser, it should look like

Double click x10flasher_lib which should take you inside x10flasher_lib folder. 

[[[Note if you don't have open in terminal, proceed after ending square brackets if you already have this or if you use Linux Mint

If you do not have Open in Terminal install it from command line using 

sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal

Logout and login again to enable nautilus open terminal. If you have Linux Mint, this is already installed and enabled and you do not need to do this!!]]]

Now from inside x10flasher_lib right click blank space and select Open in Terminal

You should be inside x10flasher_lib in command line. 

Become root (this is very important)

sudo su

Backup your phone data (contacts, sms, images, songs ...), switch off phone

Entering your phone into fastboot mode 

Step 1:

After switching off, Connect one end of your usb cable to phone and do not plug other end of usb cable to your PC/Laptop

Step 2: 

Press and hold Volume up button and plug other end of usb cable into your ubuntu system (Your phone led should glow in blue color)

Step 3: 

From inside x10flasher_lib directory as root, execute the following command to test the version

            ./fastboot.linux -i 0x0fce getvar version

You can see from the above screenshot, fastboot.linux displays version as 0.5. It means we are good to go and unlock the phone

Step 4:

To unlock your phone (fingers crossed), do this (paste the unlock key you got from email after 0x)

          ./fastboot.linux -i 0x0fce oem unlock 0x

It should unlock, now unplug usb cable and switch on your phone.

Step 5:

Happily install recovery and install custom ROM of your choice, 

for e.g, I tried this combination and it worked!

Install Advanced Stock Kernel and install XTXperience 7

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1729280

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1931325

For installing custom kernel, you can run Flashtool in fastboot mode

From here, it is fairly straightforward, flash the kernel using "Select Kernel to Flash" button

If you flash Advanced Stock Kernel, it will be prerooted and have recovery installed. Custom rom can be installed from recovery

Paradigm shift

I have upgraded windows 8 release preview to Windows 8 Pro in one system

Till now I was not open to this sort of ideas, but it is mind-blowing

It is a paradigm shift, kudos Windows 8

It is not the speed which is different from other OS, it is the way we operate with apps which makes it look like a science fic movie, I am not joking, it is more true, the bigger your monitor is!

Say for e.g, I search something in search engine, 10 results are displayed in a screen and page numbers for moving to next page, and I scroll down to bottom click next or the page number

Now see how the same thing in Bing app in windows 8, it displays all results continuous, just a scroll of mouse moves result after result from right to right, the more you scroll the more results all flowing from left to right, shocking you with deluge of data, truly looks like a science fic movie.


Just a tap on images and lakhs of images just to be seen on your mouse scroll

There is no distraction, the more you a concentrated guy, the more you will get immersed in your task completely

 

 

Then another eye opener, panorama in Places app, wow

No amount of seeing the tiles screenshot can justify the beauty of Windows 8, it is to be experienced, period.


After using fullscreen apps and coming to desktop makes me think why are apps so small!

It is marketing guys who try to stop you from using and getting this science fic feel of UI, break your mind barrier and openly approach Windows 8 and you are there for a pleasant shock

After 2 months of slackware 14 use

This blog is in praise of Slackware 14

These are my views

Slackware 14 is one of the most powerful operating systems

After 2 months of use, I am finding slackware 14 to be still awesome. It still has lots of surprises

I have not seen a single crash all this long, how did they do it (After I wrote this blog post, Amarok crashed, oops ... updating blog)

Throw whatever load at it and it handles as if it is nothing. Even I moved harddisk to a new motherboard and there it ran without questions

It is super fast, I have not compiled kernel, but I can tell no kernel compilation can bring this much speed

The same system when I am running other distributions seems to take loads of time to even launch apps, this one blows the speed competition away

Slackware 14 is a beast and can handle very powerful systems/hardware with super ease!

So I am thinking of installing this linux in my main computer and push ubuntu into virtualbox, :)

KDE over ssh

OMG

OMG, unbelievable

I am stunned, KDE is running over ssh

See the below screenshot

You can see ubuntu's violet terminals, ubuntu's global menu (close button on the left), Slackware 14 taskbar at the bottom, Ubuntu dashbar towards the left, Kinfocenter of KDE running from slackware, gnome system monitor of ubuntu running, KDE system settings running

Wondering, how it is possible? read ahead

Slackware KDE menu, ubuntu dash bar, KDE desktop

Slackware 14's firefox running in the right, Ubuntu's firefox running in the left, though KDE is running via ssh, it is surprising, titlebar, action bar (close, minimize and maximize) are using native ubuntu's

Another thing very surprising is, KDE over ssh using my powerful PC with nvidia card as x server and able to do 3d graphical effects!! whereas when I directly connect KDE slackware to monitor, it does not

 I love linux, :)

I recently assembled a low powered i3 system (just processor and a motherboard), swapped 4 GB from my old system(old system with i7 920 got 12 GB RAM upgrade) into new motherboard.

Removed a 500 GB hard disk from old system and swapped it to new system

OMG, slackware harddisk just booted into the new system

Now, I am having a single monitor so wanted to use both systems and don't want to keep swapping hdmi cables between two systems,

So here is what I experimented

To understand this see the following two important things on the setup (consider this assumptions applicable for my setup, which will vary with yours)

1. Slackware 14 on i3 3220 box is a headless ssh server (headless means no monitor, keyboard or mouse is connected) connected to home router through LAN cable with an ip address 192.168.1.5

2. Ubuntu 12.04 on i7 920 is a ssh client but has full fledged monitor, keyboard and mouse connected to it (as my Ubuntu box has nvidia GTX 460 card, it can handle tremendous GUI load), this box  is also connected to home router through LAN cable with an ip address 192.168.1.6


SSH Server Setup for X Forwarding

Now to enable X over ssh, this needs to be done in the ssh server which is slackware 14 box

Booted slackware 14 box, (while installing slackware I had enabled ssh). After that I opened  /etc/ssh/sshd_config

and changed X11Forwarding to yes from no and uncommented it


To do this, as a super user in slackware, where the ssh server is running I did this

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

 X11Forwarding yes

it should look like this

Then rebooted slackware 14 box


Testing X on SSH Client 

My ssh client is  ubuntu box.

To connect to ssh server I opened terminal and used ssh, gave my slackware credentials

ssh -X sankaran@192.168.1.5

You can see from the above, there is a capital X option after ssh, which indicates X to be forwarded/tunneled through ssh connection (ssh is considered secure)

192.168.1.5 is the ssh server which is my slackware 14 box

sankaran is the username in slackware 14 box

to check if the display is set correctly, tested this

echo $DISPLAY

it displayed


localhost:10.0

Now I ran xterm to check if X is forwarded properly

xterm

You can see from the below screenshot, how xterm is launched from slackware but its output got displayed in Ubuntu

Also observe the titlebar with left side close button, minimize button and maximize button


To show the difference between ssh session, I have given uname -a

you can see all these from below screenshot

Running KDE from inside ssh session

now that I showed how the ssh client and ssh server are configured and tested, it is time to put it to test

Just give startkde in ssh session, wow , wow, OMG

it runs a full fledged kde, unbelievable, isn't it

startkde

see the screenshots

KDE is starting from inside ssh session

See the kde taskbar at the bottom with kde icons and ubuntu dash icons in the left, omg

To show how KDE differs, I just clicked the folder applet and took the following screenshot

Observe network manager is showing a red colored x button in kde, who cares, as slackware is already connected to LAN and WAN, :)

To speed up things, we can do the following while doing ssh connection

ssh -XC -c blowfish sankaran@192.168.1.5

in the above C means compression is used while transfering data over LAN

-c blowfish tells the compression to use blowfish which is according to ssh manual a fast cipher for compression

All done, now slackware 14 does not have pulseaudio installed. I did not get any audio over ssh, though I guess if pulseaudio is installed it could piggyback audio through ssh

which means the audio through ssh will be my next experiment

Conclusion

One good thing about slackware 14 is it is an extremely powerful distribution, born to be a server (indeed a king of servers),

you may think,

Is Ubuntu or any other distribution can't do this?,
it can, but they launch desktop environment as soon as you boot, Ubuntu uses network manager to configure dhcp negotiation which works only after logging into gui.

All this means, I need to install Ubuntu server, which is a double work for me and I dont want to leave slackware anytime(fanboy, yes,  common, I am a  diehard slackware fan )

So so, Slackware 14, this flexible god of distributions does what you say, nothing less, nothing more, it exactly runs what you want. Just that

Whereas Ubuntu as a gui distribution helps my lazy mentality (LOL), now when the king of server distribution is plugged to Ubuntu client via ssh x forwarding, it is wonderful indeed

(Fedora, opensuse ... all these runs into gui ... so either ubuntu server or slackware 14 acts as a perfect headless box, slackware 14 has edge, it runs gui beautifully, as and when you want it to)

Reader of this blog, Hope you liked my exciting experiment

Enjoy