openSUSE 11.1 with KDE on ThinkPad

NOTE: Please refer to my another post about GNOME.
Prologue

• Default install brings you nearly ready-to-use OS.
• Centralized YaST control center makes SUSE the most friendly distro I've used.

Install

1. Boot from DVD.
2. Choose your screen size using F3. (NOTE: this is the screen size of installation process, tty and boot splash. Your runlevel 5 screen size can be changed in your DE.
3. Proceed to summary page:
   • Add language support if you need to.
   • Search and remove beagle-related packages. (NOTE: I don't like beagle, so do it if you're alike. And if you're not removing it here, it will call a handful of dependency when you do it later.)
4. Finish install and log in your account.

Status

• Display is 16-bit even if shown 32-bit in configuration dialog.
• Amarok doesn't play mp3.

Network

1. It seems KNetworkManager does not provide a way to connect xDSL.
2. In YaST: Turn NM off, setup a DSL, and use '/sbin/ifup dsl0' to get online.

Update

1. Disable update applet if you don't like it.
2. The default repositories (OSS, Non-OSS, update) are already set. So Update directly.
3. What takes my attention from update:
   • fluendo mp3 support (NOTE: this mp3 codec seems producing a lot of static noise.)
   • Microsoft fonts
   • Flash player

NTFS

1. Reference: en.opensuse.org
2. Default NTFS does not allow normal user to write.
3. Modify NTFS entries in /etc/fstab so they look like this:

   /dev/sda1 /windows/C ntfs-3g user,users,gid=users,fmask=113,dmask=002,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0

4. If you don't want to reboot, remount all NTFS partitions.

Repositories

1. Now YaST has a priority system for software repositories.
2. SUSE Collection: opensuse.org
3. Packman: gwdg.de
4. nVidia: nvidia.com (NOTE: web access forbidden)
5. libdvdcss: linuxin.dk (NOTE: web access forbidden)

Multimedia

1. Reference: opensuse-community.org
2. Ensure packman and libdvdcss repo are enabled.
3. Install:
   • ffmpeg
   • k3b-codecs
   • libdvdcss
   • libxine1-codecs
   • w32codec-all
   • amarok-xine

Qt SDK

1. Till this writing, libqt4 in openSUSE has bugs.
2. Download SDK from qtsoftware.com.
3. Install libqt4-devel first to ensure all dependencies are ready, then remove libqt4-devel.
4. Install downloaded qt-sdk.

Amule

1. Reference (firewall): amule.org
2. Reference (ed2k links handling): amule.org
3. Install from packman.
4. Open ports (TCP: 4662, UDP: 4672 4665) in YaST.
5. Configure firefox with ed2k link handler.
   1. open about:config
   2. New Boolean network.protocol-handler.external.ed2k, true
   3. New String network.protocol-handler.app.ed2k, /usr/bin/ed2k
   4. New Boolean network.protocol-handler.expose.ed2k, false

Optional software

• unrar
• p7zip
• blender (3D modeling)
• wireshark (packet analyzer)
• kchmviewer (KDE3 application; Okular is too slow to open chm files)
• picasa (Better than digiKam)
• virtualbox
• Games:
  • armagetronad
  • frozen-bubble
  • kde4-knetwalk
  • kde4-konquest