Recently in Linux Category

• Intel Atom N450 processor (1.66 GHz, HT enabled)
• 1 GB (1024 MB) RAM
• 160 GB HDD
• 10.1" LCD display (1024x600 resolution, fairly standard)
• 1.3MP webcam
• HP Synaptics Clickpad
• Broadcom 802.11g wireless
• 10/100 Ethernet
• Intel HD graphics (3100 I do believe)
  

• Most everything

• Wifi
• Touchpad

1. Connect to the internet via ethernet
2. Update the kernel-default package to the most current package. You can run zypper up or Yast Online Update or preferred update mechanism and just install all the updates as well.
3. Add the Packman repository
4. Install the broadcom-wl and broadcom-wl-kmp-default packages (must do both, or you will change your kernel to the debug kernel. Don't want that now...)
5. Reboot

1. Install kernel-source, make, and gcc
2. Update /usr/src/linux/drivers/input/mouse/synaptics.c and /usr/src/linux/drivers/input/mouse/synaptics.h with the files in the attached zip: Desktop.zip
3. Using README.SUSE in the kernel source directory, configure, build, and install your custom kernel
4. Reboot
5. Voila, a working touchpad. No multitouch, but hey, like I said, openSUSE 11.3 will be working properly with this fancy touchpad.
   

jpr noted on his blog that I've been interesting in integrating PackageKit into the distribution. This is one of my many goals for making openSUSE a better operating system than it already is.

Currently, I'm waiting for PolicyKit 0.5 and dbus 1.1.2 to get into the distribution. After that, we can write a zypp backend, test it, and send it upstream to PackageKit, since they want backends to be part of PackageKit themselves. Our various updaters can be replaced by PackageKit frontends, and Benji's One-Click Install can be simplified since it can use PackageKit to set up the repositories and install the packages, instead of a nasty hack of calling another yast module via a longish command.

I'm currently working on the policy-editor module for YaST (to edit
PolicyKit configuration), and I want some input on some of the design
decisions:

1. I'm using python code for the loading and parsing of the policy
description files (its XML, and DOM makes parsing XML a dream). The
policy description files describes the actions, provides a
(translateable) description, and sane defaults.

That part I'm fine with, since I can use YCP to interact with and load
the model from the python code.

2. The actual policies as defined by the system administrator is located
in /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf

Now my question is, how should I go about generating this file? Should
we use this file directly, or use sysconfig to generate the file
dynamically, and potentially provide for a "local include" so that you
can include custom policies not set via YaST?

I added mugshot to my OBS repo: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/jhaygood/openSUSE_10.3/

For more information on mugshot: http://www.mugshot.org

Any other cool packages I should add?

While I like some of Apple's engineering's efforts (webkit.org mostly), some of their other creations suck.

The new Apple iPod Touch was released the other day. Apple apparently changed the database format of the on device media library to require some secret cryptography so that it only works with Apple iTunes, preventing other players (such as Banshee) from properly working with the iPod. I don't personally own an iPod for many reasons, and this is just another reason to boycott the Apple iPod.

Best operating system ever.