Chromium on a netbook

With openSUSE 11.2 works like a charm!

Firefox seems very sluggish and not very stable when using XFCE 4.4, Chromium 6.0 however has been a fast breath of fresh air to me!

Chromium 1 Click Install for openSUSE 11.2

XFCE and NetworkManager

On openSUSE 11.2, XFCE is my desktop environment of choice for my sweet little precious Acer Aspire One (simply because only starting Plasma drains the accu way to fast!).
But, there are some little quirks (really?) one has to circumvent:

• For NetworkManager only KNetworkManager is installed (which requires quite a lot of additional Qt and KDE stuff preloaded), so installing NetworkManager for GNOME (nm-applet) is a wise choice here.
• If that is installed, make sure in the XFCE Startup and Session configuration Staring GNOME services is enabled.
• Then use run program to start nm-applet
• Now refresh your dns cache with /etc/init.d/nscd restart

Then it should just work!

Gtk and Javascript, kewl?

Took a while to pick this one up, but it seems really promising for fast prototyping desktop applications:

Building desktop Linux applications with JavaScript

Configuring Huawei E1752 on openSUSE

Configuring the Huawei E1752 mobile internet usb modem (as it is used by ie Tele2 in the Netherlands) has been quite a challenge on openSUSE, thats why it seems like a sensible idea to write down the steps i took here:

1. First, install the newest version of the following packages (search them om http://software.opensuse.org/search ):
   • umtsmon
   • usb-modeswitch
   • huawei-umtsmodem
2. Reboot the computer to ensure all modules are loaded
3. Connect the usbstick
4. Check lsusb is the Huawei stick is shown as a modem (instead of just a plain device without the mention of it being a modem)
5. Edit /etc/sysconfig/network/config and change NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=”auto” to NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=”STATIC_FALLBACK ppp* NetworkManager”
6. Start umtsmon once and create a profile, shut it down again
7. Check if ls -l /dev/ttyUSB* results in /dev/ttyUSB0, /dev/ttyUSB1 and /dev/ttyUSB2
8. Open /home/~user/.umtsmon/umtsmon.rc and set PPPPortName=/dev/ttyUSB0 instead of ttyUSB2 (which is only for monitoring purposes).
9. Reboot again to make sure everything is loaded (die hard "no linux doesnt need to reboot"-fanboys can also relogin and perform a rcnetwork restart if they feel like it).
10. Start umtsmon from Menu -> Internet -> Dialup -> umtsmon (or just Konsole umtsmon)
11. Enter the pincode and connect the default profile
12. And it SHOULD JUST WORK LIKE THAT

Took me just about 3 hours to find all this out, please, have fun with it!

====

ABSOLUTELY NO WARRENTY AT ALL, but these scripts seemed to have worked for me on openSUSE 11.2:

Install the packages:

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Freespacer:/huawei_umtsmodem/openSUSE_11.2/ home:Freespacer:huawei_umtsmodem &&

zypper addrepo http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/tuoma/openSUSE_11.2/ home:tuoma &&

zypper update --recommends usb-modeswitch &&

zypper install --recommends umtsmon &&

zypper insatll --recommends huawei_umtsmodem

Editing DNS configuration:

sed 's/NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=”auto”/NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=”STATIC_FALLBACK ppp* NetworkManager”' /etc/sysconfig/network/config

Editing umtsmon userconfig:

sed 's/PPPPortName=//dev//ttyUSB2/PPPPortName=//dev//ttyUSB0' /home/$USER/.umtsmon/umtsmonrc

====

If connecting doesnt work (or on receiving DNS updating errors when running connect in umtsmon) try disabling all other network cards/connections before retrying.

Atomic updates?

Normaliter is de schrijver dezes niet bepaald een persoontje welke zich volgaarne laat meeslepen in een van historische bijnoten overladen periode, zoals de ijskoude oorlog, echter sommige overblijfselen daarvan kunnen toch ook in de huidige stand der techniek tot een uiterst aangename vorm van toekomstige arbeidsnostalgica verwerkt worden.

Om het maar even eenvoudig te duiden, hier zou ondergetekende toch wel zonder noemenswaardige autoriteitsconflicten tewerkgesteld willen worden:

Royal Pingdom » The world’s most super-designed data center – fit for a James Bond villain

PS De slotgracht wordt hopelijk wel bewaakt door friggin sharks with laserbeams on their head....

Windows en updates

Eindelijk mocht MS na een slordige 3 jaar knutselen Service Pack 3 voor Windows XP vrijgeven.
Een heugelijk feit an sich, ware het niet dat voor ondergetekende deze update inhield dat iedere mogelijke patch/update annex aanverwant stukje aanvullende software vrolijk iedere eerste dinsdag van de maand handmatig uitgerold bleek te mogen worden.

Nu heeft, en daarmee wordt deze post dan zowaar eens niet een bash-MS-voor-gevorderden-post, MS een open-source initiatief/code hosting genaamd CodePlex, alwaar een bijzonder behulpzaam stukje scriptwerk de eerdergenoemde automatische updates weer in ere wist te herstellen, voor eenieder die tegen dezelfde uitdagingen aanloopt, et voila:

Automatic Updates and WindowsUpdate Reset tool - Home

“Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.”

The 10 Best Linus Torvalds Quotes