KCheckGMail works on openSUSE 11.1, openSUSE 11.0 and openSUSE 10.3.

Install KCheckGMail

KCheckGMail can be installed using the following 1-click installers available at openSUSE Build Service. Click one of the following 1-click installs based on your openSUSE version.

openSUSE 11.1 & openSUSE 11.0

NOTE: There isn’t a 1-click installer available for openSUSE 11.1 yet but the 1-click installer available for openSUSE 11.0 works just fine with 11.1

openSUSE 10.3

Click Next on the window showing the repository selection then Next on the package selection window. This should start adding the repositories and download and install the KCheckGMail package and the required dependencies. Click Finish when the installation completes.

This should install KCheckGMail under Applications – Internet – Email  as “New Email Notifier” with the GMail symbol.

Click “New Email Notifier” or /opt/kde3/bin/kcheckgmail from a terminal. Click OK on the welcome message window and accept the License Agreement in the following window.

This should launch the configuration window for KCheckGMail. For a simple configuration, enter GMail user account and password, this should start with the defaults. Advanced configs like the time interval between every check, default browser to use to launch GMail on browser can be configured from here or later from the “Configure KcheckGMail” option in the systray (right-click menu).

As you would, straight forward simple application for KDE. Click here to visit the project homepage.

Download a file from several URIs(HTTP(S)/FTP/BitTorrent)

Aria2 can download files concurrently without having to wait for the current download queue to finish one file.

Aria2 tries to utilize your maximum download bandwidth and downloads files quickly.

Aria2 supports Adaptive segemnted downloading wherein, unlike other similar applications, Aria2 can split a download segment (assuming from a slow connection) further down up to 1MB. If in an instance this last 1MB is on a slow connection, it can cancel this connection and download the segment from a faster connecting server.

Supports connections via all kinds of proxy including where authentication is required.

Physical Memory foot print is as low as 3MB to 6MB while CPU usage in BitTorrent with download speed of 1500KB/sec is around 6%.

For a full list of features, click here

Install Aria2

Aria2 can be installed using the 1-click install YaST Metapackage files (YMP) from openSUSE software Build Service. Click one of the following 1-click Installs based on your version of openSUSE. This will download the YMP file and automatically launch YaST Package manager to add the required repositories and install aira2 and the dependency packages.

openSUSE 11.1

openSUSE 11.0

openSUSE 10.3

Click Next on the Repository selection screen and Next on the package Selection screen and finally Next on the Installation proposal screen. This should add the repositories, download aria2 and relevant packages and install. Click Finish when the software has installed successfully.

This should install aria2 as /usr/bin/aria2c

For a list of options that aria2c can run with, “-h” option or check the man page

opensuse11_1:~ # aria2c -h

or

man aria2c

To download a file

opensuse11_1:~ # aria2c http://www.example.com/test.iso

By default, aria2c uses 5 connections to download a single file. This can be controlled using a -s argument to specify the number of allowed connections (say 2).

To download using 2 connections from 2 servers

opensuse11_1:~ # aria2c -s2 http://www.server1.com/test.iso http://www.server2.com/test.iso

To find a host of usage options and examples, click here

While this procedure is written for openSUSE 11.1, it should just work fine for openSUSE 11.0, openSUSE 10.3 as well as the 1-click install supports these versions.

Check the install Wireless module to confirm it is one of the above listed Broadcom Wireless devices.

openSUSE11_1:~ # lspci|grep -i broad
0b:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)

Click this to download and automatically start YaST Package manager. Click Next on the installation Welcome screen and click “Customize” on the screen showing the Repository and the packages selected to install. Click Next on the repository selection and screen.

And finally, in the screen showing the list of packages selected to install, untick the drivers for custom Kernels like Kernel-pae, Kernel-trace & Kernel-xen (unless you use any of these Kernel versions than the default one).

This means you will untick the following:

Broadcom-wl-kmp-pae
Broadcom-wl-kmp-trace
Broadcom-wl-kmp-xen

and finally, click Next on the proposal screen. This will start adding the packman repository and download and install the required driver packages and required dependencies. Click Finish when the drivers have successfully installed on your openSUSE.

Now, insert the installed wireless module

openSUSE11_1:~ # modprobe wl

Now, confirm the Kernel module is loaded on your openSUSE

openSUSE11_1:~ # lsmod | grep wl
wl                   1080320  0
ieee80211_crypt         6476  2 ieee80211_crypt_tkip,wl

Confirm with the iwconfig command:

openSUSE11_1:~ # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

pan0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:”"
Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:32 dBm
Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
Power Managementmode:All packets received
Link Quality=5/5  Signal level=0 dBm  Noise level=0 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

You are now ready to go, you should already see your KNetworkManager adjusting itself to insert the wireless (eth1 in my laptop) into its list of active devices.

From KnetworkManager, click “New Connection” and select your wireless device (eth1) in my laptop, select your Wireless Network from the list of scanned networks (or manually enter the details if your Wireless network doesn’t broadcast), click next and enter your Encryption details and click Connect & Save. You should now be up and running with your Wireless.

openSUSE11_1:~ # iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:”SKY12345″
Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: 00:11:42:F3:AA:6E
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:32 dBm
Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
Power Managementmode:All packets received
Link Quality=5/5  Signal level=-29 dBm  Noise level=-89 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:14  Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

pan0      no wireless extensions.

Install PySolFC
PySOlFC can be installed using the 1-click installer available from packman. Click this 1-click installer for PySolFC to download the YaST MetaPackage file (YMP) and launch with YaST Package Manager. This 1-click installer supports openSUSE 11.0/10.3/10.2 & openSUSE 11.1 Beta

NOTE: Click here to enable 1-click install in openSUSE 10.2

Click Next on the window showing the PySolFC application description and the Next on the installation proposal window. This should start adding the required dependencies and PySolFC package itself. Click  Finish when the installation successfully completes.

This should installed PySolFC under “Applications – Games – Card Games“. Click PySolFC to launch to the Solitaire games pack.

Under the Select menu, select your game or choose to have a playable preview. The games package has good documentation as well.

Click here to visit the project homepage.

Install ultrasol

Click this 1-click installer for Ultrasol from Packman to download the YaST MetaPackage file (YMP) and launch with YaST Package Manager. This 1-click installer supports openSUSE 11.0/10.3/10.2 & openSUSE 11.1 (Beta)

NOTE: Click here to enable 1-click install in openSUSE 10.2

click Next on the window showing the Ultrasol application description and the Next on the installation proposal window. This should start adding the required dependencies and ultrasol package itself. Click  Finish when the installation successfully completes.

This should install Ultrasol under “Applications – Games – Card Games“. Launch Ultrasol and you have it all…all the 400 different solitaire games.

For a quick preview of what is in offer, click Select – playable Preview. This allows you to preview the game and at the same serves a preview for you.

You can change the card sets, card images and the backgrounds all from the settings menu.

I’m sure this is one game or set of games that you do not need any big introduction…Do you???

Features and enhancements include

Creative Expression

Custom Filters and Effects
3D Effects
New Text Engine
Text Layout Components
Drawing API Enhancements
Color Management

Visual Performance Improvements

GPU Compositing
GPU Blitting
Anti-Aliasing Engine (Saffron 3.1)
Vector Data Type

Rich Media

Enhanced Sound APIs
Dynamic Streaming
RTMFP (Real Time Media Flow Protocol)
Speex Audio Codec

Other Enhancements

NSS for Linux
Linux WMODE
Video4Linux v2 Support
unloadAndStop
Limited Fullscreen Keyboard Access
File Reference
Dynamic Sound Generation
Large Bitmap Support
Context Menu
GB18030 Compliance

For more details, click here to view the release notes for Adobe Flash Player 10

Install Adobe Flash Player 10

The procedure here should work on all openSUSE versions and definitely on openSUSE 10.3/11.0/11.1 beta. To install Adobe Flashplayer 10, it is important that you uninstall any previous versions of flashplayer installed on your openSUSE.

To check if flashplayer is already installed on your system

saibaba@opensuse:~> rpm -qa | grep flash
flash-player-9.0.124.0-10.1

If any is uninstall as a root user as follows:

opensuse11:~ # rpm -e flash-player

Now, download Adobe Flash Player 10 from here.

Ensure you choose to download the “tar.gz” version. The reason for this being that the installer should be run as the user. In other words, do not run the installer as Root.

Unzip & Untar Flashplayer 10

Once downloaded, unzip, untar the downloaded file.

saibaba@opensuse:~>  tar -zxvf install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz

Install Adobe Flash Player 10

Close any browser opened and change directory to the extracted folder and run the installer. Press ENTER when prompted to continue the installation. Enter the default installation directory to be the .mozilla directory in your user profile (for example, /home/sai/.mozilla). This should be choosen by default. If so, accept defaults.

saibaba@opensuse:~>  cd install_flash_player_10_linux

saibaba@opensuse:~/install_flash_player_10_linux> ./flashplayer-installer

Copyright(C) 2002-2006 Adobe Macromedia Software LLC.  All rights reserved.

Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux

Adobe Flash Player 10 will be installed on this machine.

You are running the Adobe Flash Player installer as a non-root user.
Adobe Flash Player 10 will be installed in your home directory.

Support is available at http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/

To install Adobe Flash Player 10 now, press ENTER.

To cancel the installation at any time, press Control-C.

NOTE: Please exit any browsers you may have running.

Press ENTER to continue…

———– Install Action Summary ———–

Adobe Flash Player 10 will be installed in the following directory:

Mozilla installation directory  = /home/saibaba/.mozilla

Proceed with the installation? (y/n/q): y

NOTE: Please ask your administrator to remove the xpti.dat from the
components directory of the Mozilla or Netscape browser.

Installation complete.

Perform another installation? (y/n): n

This should install Adobe Flash Player in your openSUSE.

To confirm successful installation launch your Firefox browser and in the address bar type “about:plugins” and press enter. This show the installed plugins of which one should be your newly installed Adobe Flashplayer 10. Even more a big evidence would be to open a flash video website like www.youtube.com and you should be able to view the videos.

NOTE: Seems to be a problem with Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 AGIntel PRO/Wireless 4965 AG wireless cards and the procedure discussed here should work.

To resolve this problem, install the Compat-Wireless drivers. The latest available drivers at the time of writing are compat-wireless-2.6-2008-07-01 and can be download here

Install Pre-requisites

The drivers needs to compiled and hence the following packages to be installed before trying to download and compile the drivers.

GNU C Compiler (gcc)

Make utility (make)

Kernel Source (kernel-source)

Kernel Headers (kernel-headers)

OPENSUSE:~ # yast2 –install gcc make kernel-source kernel-headers

Download, Unzip & Untar the latest Compat Wireless drivers

Now, we are ready to get the drivers installed.

Download the drivers

OPENSUSE:~ # wget http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-2008-07-01.tar.bz2

The versions earlier to the one used here had a problem in compiling the packages which seems to have gone with this. Always check the latest version available for download here

Unzip & Untar

OPENSUSE:~ # tar -xjf compat-wireless-2008-07-01.tar.bz2

Change Directory & Compile

OPENSUSE:~ # cd compat-wireless-2008-07-01

OPENSUSE:~/compat-wireless-2008-07-01 # make && make install

OPENSUSE:~/compat-wireless-2008-07-01 # make load

This will compile install the drivers, unload the old drivers and install the newer ones.

Reboot

Reboot your computer and you should find your Wireless working much better than what it was.

OPENSUSE:~ # reboot

Note: For chipset BCM4311Rev2 click here and for BCM4328 click here

To install and successfully use the Broadcom Wireless devices in openSUSE SUSE or infact any Linux, you can use the bcm43zz drivers from here

The bcm43xx drivers are based on reverse engineered specifications and are now included into the Linux Kernel from 2.6.17-rc2. This means the newset version of openSUSE 11.0 should have the driver already built-in with Linux Kernel 2.6.25.5-1.1.

To install the drivers in openSUSE 11.0, switch user to root and the run the bcm driver installer as follows:

SAIBABA:~ # su -
Password:
SAIBABA:~ # /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware

This should install the drivers for you.

Reboot your computer and should now be able to use the Broadcomm Wireless card.

SAIBABA:~ # reboot

This should work!!!

This may not be a viable option to use on SUSE enterprise Desktop as in a enterprise environment you wouldn’t want the user to modify or control network settings.

To setup persistent Statis Routes in openSUSE 11.0 when network settings are controlled by NetworkManager, then try the following:

1. Create a ifroute-<*> file for each interface

For every network interface on the system which needs individual persisten static routing table create a “ifroute-<*>” file in the /etc/sysconfig/network/ directory.

where <*> is the name of the interface

For instance, on my system the interface name is eth0 and hence I create a file called

/etc/sysconfig/network/ifroute-eth0

This file should have the static route entries for the hosts or networks in any of the following format:

DESTINATION           GATEWAY NETMASK   INTERFACE [ TYPE ] [ OPTIONS ]
Example
192.168.1.1 192.168.233.2 255.255.255.255 eth0

DESTINATION           GATEWAY PREFIXLEN INTERFACE [ TYPE ] [ OPTIONS ]
Example
10.1.1.0  192.168.233.2 24

DESTINATION/PREFIXLEN GATEWAY -         INTERFACE [ TYPE ] [ OPTIONS ]
10.1.1.0/24 192.168.233.2 -

In the above each of the field is seperated by a TAB. [TYPE][OPTIONS] are optional.

If you not in the above, Example 2 & 3 mean exactly the same. Only represented in different formats.

So, I created a file as follows on my system

SAIBABA:~ # cat /etc/sysconfig/network/ifroute-eth0
10.1.1.1 192.168.233.2 255.255.255.255 eth0
10.10.10.0 192.168.233.2 24 eth0
172.20.1.0/24 192.168.233.2 – eth0

2. NetworkManager POST_UP Script

With NetworkManager, the POST_UP scripts are fetched from /etc/sysconfig/network/if-up.d/ directory and is set to ‘yes’ (enabled) by default. In simple terms, any script that you want to run once the Network interface up and active, simply drop them into this directory or create a symbolic link to the script file in this directory.

In SUSE and openSUSE, there are the following scripts in /etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/ directory which assist in bring up/down Interface routes and to check the status

ifup-route

To bring up static routes. This reads the file /etc/sysconfig/network/ifroute-* file.

ifdown-route

To clear the static routes loaded

ifstatus-route

To check the current status of the routes

SAIBABA:~ # /etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/ifstatus-route eth0
Configured routes for interface eth0:
169.254.0.0 – 255.255.0.0 eth0
10.1.1.1 192.168.233.2 255.255.255.255 eth0
10.10.10.0 192.168.233.2 24 eth0
172.20.1.0/24 192.168.233.2 – eth0
Active routes for interface eth0:
10.1.1.1 via 192.168.233.2
172.20.1.0/24 via 192.168.233.2
192.168.233.0/24  proto kernel  scope link  src 192.168.233.128
10.10.10.0/24 via 192.168.233.2
169.254.0.0/16  scope link
default via 192.168.233.2  proto static
3 of 4 configured routes for interface eth0 up

3. Create a Symbolic File for ifup-route

In the POST_UP directory for NetworkManager i.e, /etc/sysconfig/network/if-up.d/ create a Symbolic link as follows to the ifup-route script as follows:

SAIBABA:~ # ln -s /etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/ifup-route /etc/sysconfig/network/if-up.d/ifup-route

Thats it. You can either restart your system or simply restart your Network service for the change to take effect.

SAIBABA:~ # /etc/init.d/network restart
Shutting down the NetworkManager                                     done
Shutting down network interfaces:
eth0      device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] 79c970 [PCnet32 LANCE] (rev 10)                                                                   done
Shutting down service network  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . done.
Starting the NetworkManager                                          done

Thats it! We are done.

To Download the openSUSE 11.0 live CD ISO image from here and burn it onto a CD. Once done, ensure that your PC or laptop is set to boot from a CD-ROM. Boot with the CD and allow the live CD to boot and logon to the desktop.

On the desktop, Click the “Install” icon.

This starts the YAST 2 installer. Select the Language and Keyboard layout, agree the Licensing terms and click Next button

Select the Region and Time Zone and click Next

In the next screen set the hard disk partitioning. This can be disk Parition based or the Logical Volume Management (LVM) based and change the disk paritioning layout as necessary and click Next

Create a new User and set his username, password and opt for system emails, autologon options (if required) and click Next

Review the installation summary and click Install if all looks OK. Should you change any of the selected installation options, click on it and change accordingly.

Confirm the Installation in the confirmation window and select Install. This starts the installation. The installation now formats and paritions the hard disk, creates the file system, and installs the system components and applications. Once done, prompts to remove the CD and remove the system. Click OK.

Thats it, installation is complete. When rebooted, enter the username and pasaword to logon to the desktop. Once in, the installer prompts to install updates. Select Yes, if you want to and install the updates, click yes. This will take you through adding openSUSE 11.0 repositories and download/install the updates. The whole process completes in no time.

That completes the process….Happy openSUSE 11.0!!!