» I HAVE LOGS!

Some people have funny behaviour on IRC. Nothing new. But the "I will report this to Novell!" kind of dudes are hilarious. Tonight, on the #suse show:

00:33:00 < sPiN> neighborlee, your attitude is going to get you tossed out of here if you continue. so choose your words carefully
00:33:21 < neighborlee> sPiN: so this is a communist  channel..where free speech is against the rule of law ?
00:33:34 <@yaloki> !rules @ neighborlee 
00:33:35 < SUSEhelp> neighborlee:  Please respect the channel rules http://suse-irc.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?21
00:33:37 < kallepersson> No. But it's called common sense to shut the hell up.
[...]
00:34:20 < neighborlee> kallepersson: so I dont have free speech in here is that what your saying ?
00:34:31 < AlbertoP> neighborlee, stop that discussion please
[...]
00:34:44 <@yaloki> neighborlee: this isn't about free speech, it's about behaving to make everyone's stay here as nice as possible
00:34:46 < neighborlee> Im doing nothing wrong.,.stop accusing me of it I DO HAVE LOGS , and I will use them
00:34:55 -!- neighborlee was kicked from #suse by yaloki [behave]

And a few seconds later, somewhere in private messaging:

[19:37] <neighborlee> I will report this outrage to suse headquarters at once..your ignorant
[19:37] <sPiN> s/your/you are/
[19:37] <neighborlee> IF this is how suse is..ill format at once and use ubuntu
[19:37] <sPiN> please do
[19:37] <neighborlee> your a jerk you know that
[19:37] <neighborlee> a perfectly idiotic jerk
[19:37] <neighborlee> you dont deserve to use linux
[19:38] <neighborlee> your a total jerk
[19:38] <sPiN> you are
[19:38] <neighborlee> ignorant jerk
[19:38] <neighborlee> though its bliss ;)
[19:38] <neighborlee> congrats :)
[19:38] <neighborlee> ill be happy to BLOG this tonight
[19:38] <neighborlee> show how communist like #suse is
[19:38] <neighborlee> you WILL regret this

ph34r :) The part about Ubuntu is particularly nice.. poor #ubuntu ops, we didn't mean to, really, sorry ;)

» Gimp 2.4.0 packages

You may also install GIMP 2.4.0 from the Packman repository. I preferred to name the package gimp24 instead of just gimp to avoid all the happy "update all" triggers who have the Packman repository in the package manager configuration to suddenly get an unintended upgrade. If you actually want to upgrade, it's

zypper in gimp24

or

smart install gimp24

That should automatically remove the (much more tested) gimp 2.2.x packages that ship with openSUSE 10.2 or 10.3, or the gimp-unstable 2.4.0rc* snapshots that were already available on Packman.

» Add a directory to your PATH

As it's a recurring question, here is how to add one or more directories to your PATH (on openSUSE, but applies more or less to other distributions as well). Note that I assume you're using bash as your shell. First of all, PATH is an environment variable which is set when you log in, by a set of configuration files that augment it. Environment variables are marked as "export" and are inherited to subprocesses (e.g. if you start ls from your shell, the ls process will inherit all the exported variables from the shell process). On login (graphical through KDM, GDM or XDM, or on the console), the sequence of shell configuration files read more or less as follows (slightly simplified):

• It starts with /etc/profile,
• followed by every /etc/profile.d/*.sh file that is readable for your user,
• then /etc/profile.local if it exists,
• and finally by $HOME/.bashrc and $HOME/.profile

Every time you open a new shell (including through X terminal applications like xterm, konsole, gnome-terminal, urxvt, etc...), the shell process inherits all the environment variables that have been set on login by the files mentioned above. It then merely reads $HOME/.bashrc (which, on openSUSE, defaults to read $HOME/.profile). Now, back to PATH. First of all, you have to decide whether you want to add a directory to the PATH of your user or of all users (including root). If it's just for your own user, then apply the change to $HOME/.profile and if it's for all users, then apply the change to /etc/profile.local (and create it if needed, it doesn't by default). You may either use your favourite text editor (vim, emacs, kate, ...) or use the following shell code snippet to expand PATH, the following example being for your very own environment and hence only applies to your own user:

echo 'PATH=/opt/blah/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.profile

As you can see above, we've prepended the directory /opt/blah/bin to PATH. Make sure to use ">>" and not ">" (>> means "append", while > means "create or overwrite"). The point is, because of how bash reads configuration files on startup and how the configuration files are arranged (see above), changes made to e.g. /etc/profile.local will not be applied when you open your next X terminal application. You have to log out of your session (either X session or console session) and log in again to see the changes. Also note that as opposed to MS Windows, the change doesn't instantly apply to all open cmd.exe windows either. To avoid having to log out and in again, you may just "source" the configuration file you've modified in your existing shells and/or in the shells you open until your log out, like this: ". /etc/profile" (or "source /etc/profile") -- without the "", that is. On openSUSE (and probably on most other Linux distributions nowadays), the directory $HOME/bin is automatically added to PATH if it exists.

» Upgrade to java-1_6_0-sun u3 on openSUSE 10.3: fixing alternatives links

If you upgrade to java-1_6_0-sun-1.6.0.u3 on openSUSE 10.3, the /etc/alternatives/ links will be broken. To quickly fix them, just copy/paste the following snippet as in a shell as root:

for f in /etc/alternatives/j*; do
  ff=$(readlink "$f")
  case "$ff" in
    */jvm*|*/share/man/*) update-alternatives --auto "${f##*/}";;
    *) echo "(skipping $f)";;
  esac
done

» openSUSE contributor survey

In case you're not reading the opensuse-project mailing-list (you should, really, and if you just subscribe to one list, pick that one), Jan Fredrik Stoveland who is a masters student at the University of Oslo is writing a thesis on "firm-sponsored open source communities", with openSUSE being the main case of the study. He kindly asks openSUSE contributors to fill in a short survey. It's really quick, have a shot.

» Novell/Microsoft suit on agreements with vendors

Interesting. And the outcome will be even more so. So much for "Novell being in bed with Microsoft": http://blue-gnu.biz/content/exclusionary_agreement_grievance_gets_airing_novell_microsoft_suit

» Stefan about the Novell/SUSE buyout

Stefan Hundhammer, a S.u.S.E./SuSE/SUSE/openSUSE old timer gives his 2 eurocents about the Novell/SuSE buyout: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2007-10/msg01079.html Certainly an interesting read and opinion.

» Smart on openSUSE 10.3

zypper sa -r http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/smart/openSUSE_10.3/smart.repo
zypper ref smart
zypper install smart
smart channel --add http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/files/smart/opensuse-10.3.txt
smart mirror --add http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/files/smart/mirrors-eu.txt
smart update