A First Look at openSUSE 12.01Stay Away - Stay Far Far Away

Just this last week my friend Pat, his girlfriend and I went to the Trenton Computer Fair where there was some really interesting stuff to see.  The embedded micro-controllers were especially interesting and - even a week later - I am still drooling over what I saw there.

One of the tables was hosted by a couple of guys from openSUSE who were handing out free CD's of their - New and Improved! - 12.10 distribution.  (You know, SUSE.  Like GICO.  They both have green lizards as mascots.)

It was wonderful!  Balloons!  Confetti!  A Heavenly Choir!  Promises of the Wonderfully Open Vistas of Open Source Computing!  All it needed was the presence of Richard Stallman of FSF/GNU fame to make it a Truly Religious Experience.

I was particularly interested in the new release of openSUSE since the SUSE reps mentioned that much work had been done to move the current release firmly into the 21st Century.  So, I'm thinking - hey!  It's free, why not!  So, I grabbed a couple, planning to give one to my friend Pat.

One of the SUSE reps asked me if I had tried openSUSE before, and if I had - what did I think of it.  I told them yes, I had tried earlier versions; and on my rankings of things I like to do, I rated it just below the flu and just above intestinal diarrhea.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that these earlier versions were hideously abysmal, but any distribution in the late '90's or early 2000's that required a boot floppy to launch, even after installation, was not high on my list of bleeding-edge distributions.  Or even functionally usable distributions for that matter.  And judged by that standard of excellence - requiring a boot floppy to start - the rest of the distribution did not disappoint either.  These earlier distributions were crufty and their install a BEAR with a capitol GROWL!

After polite laughs all around at my tactful description of the merits of the earlier versions of openSUSE, they suggested that I try their newest one.  For one thing, it no longer required a boot floppy.  Miracle of miracles, it would actually boot from the hard drive!  Additionally, the 12.10 release was even a, (gasp!), live CD!!  (Oooh!  I bet the early versions of Knoppix are just burning with jealousy. . .)  They were brimming with pride at the technological advancements in this, their newest release.

All sarcasm aside, I did want to see what they had actually done, I grabbed a couple of CD's and proceeded to try to install it on one of the machines I had.

The installation CD itself is a "flippy" disk with the 32 bit version on one side and the 64 bit version on the other.  Now I don't know if that saves them money - but it is convenient in a way - you don't need two disks.

However, the religious aura began to fade when I noticed that, not only was the CD housed in a rough cardboard sleeve with no liner, (Can you say "scratches"?), the "32 bit" and "64 bit" designations on the flippy disk were both upside down and backwards.

"Ahh!  Mere trivia!"  I thought, so I proceeded with the installation.

The first thing you notice is that the install is reminiscent of an early Red-Hat or Fedora install.  Which, in a way, makes sense as openSUSE is yet another RH/Fedora clone.  Unfortunately, the one thing sadly lacking in the installation process is any kind of serious usability testing.

Now I will admit that, maybe, the ease and simplicity of a typical Ubuntu install has me spoiled; but I think that by now - in 2012 - any distribution's installation should be more polished than this one was.  Though it had a GUI of sorts, there was a strong deja-vu kind of flash-back to the times when I tried to install text based Red Hat 5.n releases.

"It's all about choices!" - and there are choices aplenty in this distribution.  Which is good.  Unfortunately there is very little help to guide the person installing the distribution as to which choice they might want to choose, and why they might wish to choose it.  Which is bad.  Even a seasoned installer is calmly guided into choices that - if not watched carefully - will end up doing things to the system that Shouldn't Happen to a Dog.

In a sense it reminds me of a line I read in a Sci-Fi novel a while ago:  "It's like handling a live grenade; you have to REALLY PAY ATTENTION."  And they're not kidding!!

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OpenSUSE's Kindergarten Report Card:
Listens and Follows Instructions - "F"
Plays Well With Others - "F"

Case in point:
OpenSUSE appears to be totally oblivious to the presence of any other operating systems installed with the exception of Windows.  "Oooh!  You have Ubuntu, Slackware, Minix, or even Tiny Core installed?  Hah!  You don't need those stinkin' wannabees now - you have openSUSE!"  And it goes to great lengths to take over the entirety of your hard disk - exclusive of Windows - and doesn't tell you if it sees anything else there.  If you're not paying attention during the partitioning phase, say syonara! to your carefully crafted disk partitions.

If you are careful, (or lucky), and notice that openSUSE is about to clobber everything else on your disk, you can select "manual partitioning" to force it to do what you want.  Sort-of.

OpenSUSE wants to create a bunch of "LVM" - logical volume manager partition sets - like it or not - and getting it to change it's mind is like pulling teeth.

The instructions down at the bottom of the manual partitioning page tell you to "select the partition you want to change."  So you select one and click "change".  It pops up a dialog telling you that the partition you selected is part of a managed logical volume and cannot be changed because of this.

So, wanting to get rid of the managed logical volume itself, you select it and click "change".  Zzzzzt!  You get a dialog telling you that the managed logical volume contains managed partitions so you cannot change it.

Are you noticing a pattern here?

After trying several things and rapidly becoming convinced that, just possibly, what needs to be changed is the distribution itself - you stumble on the fact that you need to select the sub-sub-sub item within the managed logical volume for it to allow you to, finally, make the changes you desire.  Not that this is at all obvious, mind you.

After - gleefully! - deleting every #&*%@&ing!!! managed partition, AND the managed logical volume itself, you can then - try - to partition the disk some other way.

OpenSUSE's tenacity is absolutely amazing!  It goes to great lengths to insist that you create managed logical volumes; like them, want them, need them, or not.

Now, I am sure that there are real advantages to having managed logical volume sets, whatever those advantages might be.  And I am equally sure that they are the Wave of the Future.  However my installation is comparatively simple and a single primary partition is all I need.  And I'd really appreciate the distribution respecting my choice to do as I will.  Even the choice to make horribly destructive mistakes - after being duly warned of my potential stupidity - if that is what I choose to do.

Eventually. . . .  I convinced openSUSE to make the ONE STINKIN' PRIMARY PARTITION I wanted, format it as EXT4, mount it as root, and use the existing swap partition as it's swap space.

Frankly, I don't remember what I did to get to that point.  Black magic?  Blood sacrifice?  Hefty bribes?  I don't remember and I am convinced that this may well be a case of selective amnesia.

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On with the show!  Finally satisfied, (actually scared silly that it will ignore my carefully laid plans), I proceed to install the distribution.

With regard to the installation - I will give it credit for one thing. . . . .

Unlike both Windows and Ubuntu, openSUSE avoids the professional dogmatism and hoopla telling you how wonderful this operating system is, and how lucky you will be having installed it.  There could be a couple of reasons for this:  Maybe, just maybe, they finally got something in the UI right - or, as is likely - they really didn't have that much to crow about.

The installation is done and you reboot into your shiny new operating system, eager to see what the openSUSE 12.10 release is like.

When the desktop finally appears you are indeed struck by the Wonderfully Open Vistas of Open Source Computing.  Minimalist?  This takes sparse to a whole new level!  Not only is there eff-all on the desktop, there's darn little else on the peripheries to guide you either.

The two things you DO notice are the "favorites bar" on the left hand side - think "Macintosh's Dock" - and a series of boxes on the right hand side that are supposed to represent the various flippable desktops you can select.  It's not a bad idea, but the visual cues make you think that those boxes are placeholders for something or other.

Another gripe is that the Favorites Bar is BIG.  It takes up a vertical swath on the left-hand side that is easily 10 to 15% of the screen width - if not more.

The Macintosh experience is driven further by the fact that finding something to use - or do - is a pain if it's not located on the Dock - oops!  I meant "favorites bar"!  The only big difference between the favorites bar and the Dock - besides it being positioned on the left, which the Mac can do if you want - is the fact that the icons located there don't bounce when you select them.

After searching and finding something you want - like a terminal - you need to save it to the favorites bar if you plan to use it more than once or twice a year.  (Or, alternatively, you can try to remember where it's hidden.)

Like Ubuntu, it does tell you if there are "restricted" drivers for your hardware.  Unlike Ubuntu, it doesn't make them easy to install.  After you locate the installer for these restricted drivers (!!) you are given a list of the drivers available - but you can only select and install one at a time.

So, you end up going through a process like this:

• Find the installer.  (If it's not on the Dock.)
• Update the installer
• Pick and install a restricted driver.
• Reboot.
• Jump back to step 1 until you either run out of drivers to install, or patience with all this horse-hooey.

Some of the other utilities are also models of intuitive usability.

One good example is the package installer.  It's called Yast, (an incredibly intuitive name in itself), and it has an icon that looks like either an anteater or aardvark with a schnoz to match.  Maybe you are supposed to get the idea of "vacuuming up" the various packages off the floor?  Or maybe the available packages rate right up there with termites or other insect vermin?  Dunno.  They didn't tell me.

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Fair is fair.  I haven't used a RH/Fedora distribution in several years so it is possible that the desktop paradigm has become foreign to me.  And it is also true that within the realm of Open Source, anyone can take whatever distribution they want, bend it in all kinds of different ways, and nobody can say "Boo!"

So, despite my opinions of the openSUSE distribution, it is their distro - and they can do with it whatever they darn well please.  Like it or not.

In my opinion the current openSUSE distribution is, most definitely, NOT for the uninitiated.  And even if you are a Seasoned Veteran - with the Battle Scars to prove it - you might just want to think two or three times before messing with the 12.10 distribution of openSUSE.

What say ye?

Jim (JR)

Monetize Your Site - NOT!!

One of the many features here on Blogger.com, (my blog host), is to "monetize" my blogs.  What this means is that I can elect to add advertising to this site - and I get paid a few kopeks for every click-through on an advertisement.

And, at first blush, that sounds like a good idea.  I write a blog, it gets followers, (as this one is doing - thanks!), and I make money.

When I started this blog I gave that serious thought, after all EVERYBODY can use a little extra cash now and then, right?

My decision:  No.  I refused to allow advertisements on this site - or any of my blogs for that matter.

So, if it is such a good idea, why did I decide not to, 'eh?

First of all, this site is not about the money.  I consider this site, and the attention it has gathered, a privilege - and I believe that I have a responsibility to those who choose to follow this blog.

I have learned much, and have gone far "On The Shoulders of Giants", as it were.  I have been blessed with the opportunity to learn from some of the very best sources of information - both in person and on various web-sites.  And it's all been free.  Since I have been privileged to learn from the best in the business, I feel a serious obligation to pass along - also for free - what information I can share.

Second, I HATE sites that have more adds than content.  Trying to find some critically important piece of information is hard enough as it is - so why should I have to wade through a sea of advertisements several feet thick, just to find the information I need.

Third, I want to make this site the best it can be.  Sure, there are times when I am more a "wise-guy" than wise,  and there are times when I "tweak-your-beak" with some of my odd-ball humor, but that's all a part of the game.  This stuff is frustrating enough as it is, so if I can make you laugh while delivering the content you need, so much the better.

The bottom line is this:
I believe those who follow this blog are here for the Steak, not the sizzle, so I leave all the distractions out.

So shall it be written, so shall it be done!

Jim (JR)

Networking on the Cheap

As everyone knows, we're all on a budget.  Most of our money trees have withered, and getting replacements hasn't been easy.

However, we still have things to do.  Sometimes we need to set up test environments or other things - yet both personal and corporate budgets stand in our way.

Here some tricks I have found, (and use!), that help me do the networking tasks I need without breaking the bank.

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• Make your own cables:
  
  This may seem like one of those "DOH!" statements, but you'd be surprised at how many of us don't have the tools, or parts, to make network cables ourselves.  Sure, a box of Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable isn't cheap, and the tools to crimp the ends on aren't free either - but after you have made five or so cables, the box and tools have already paid for themselves.
  
  Another nice feature:  You can make the cables any size you need, shorter or longer, without being stuck with the stock sizes.  And!  If one of your store-bought cables breaks, you can fix it, good-as-new, without having to buy another one.
  
  
• Make your own labels.  Another "Doh!", but this is not so obvious sometimes.
  
  What I do is take a page of Avery address labels - the three across by ten down type - and use them for wiring labels.  If I need a big label, I use the entire address label, folding it around the cable so it leaves a big tab.  Smaller labels can be made by cutting the address labels in half.
  
  Prior to actually attaching the label to the wire in question I label the ends using a thin sharpie, or other thin, but dark, pen.
  
  They are easy to see, they stay stuck in place, and they're easy to remove when you need to re-label something.
  
  
• Use Velcro "plant tie" tape as cable ties.
  
  This is a thin green fabric tape that has Velcro on both sides so that the bottom of one piece sticks to the top of another.  This plant tie tape can be had at virtually ANY store with a "garden" department, like Home Depot, Lowes, WalMart, etc.  A roll of this stuff usually goes for right around $4 or $5.
   
• Go to the drugstore, and buy a box of "Alcohol Prep Swabs".
  
  These are the little square alcohol soaked pieces the doctor uses to wipe your arm before giving you a shot.  They come pre-packaged in little foil wrappers, are soaked in alcohol, and make great little wipes for cleaning gunk off of things - like cables, keyboards, or other stuff that accumulates crud.  They are dirt-cheap and are handy as you-know-where.
  
  NOTE:  Do NOT use these wipes for cleaning off things like your monitor screen, your cell-phone or smart-phone, your eBook, etc., as it will fog - and ruin - the plastic covering the display.
  
  
• Scrounge the "Referb" section of local computer stores.
  
  I love to lurk the "Refurbished" section on Micro Center's web-site, as they often have really outrageous deals, depending on what you need.  I have bought a number of "refurbished" computers from them, often for pennies on the dollar, and I have never been disappointed.
  
  
• Find a computer, or amateur radio fair.
  
  Though they are getting increasingly scarce, they still exist.
  
  I have made a habit of visiting the Trenton Computer Festival for the last few years, and I have scored really expensive pieces of equipment for almost nothing.
  
  A couple of years ago, I scored a Dell PowerEdge 2850 rack mounted server with fancy RAID, onboard monitoring, and so on - for right around $100.  (eBay has them for several thousand apiece.)  Last year, I could have scored an even more modern HP rack mounted server for right around the same price.
  
  
• Go "Dumpster-Diving".
  
  Sometimes the company you work for decides to throw out stuff they don't need anymore.  If you can get the trunk of your car between them and the dumpster, you can score really fantastic stuff for free!
  
  Likewise, especially in this economy, other companies go belly-up.  If you are paying attention, you might find an excellent opportunity to grab stuff that they're throwing away.
  
  I've picked up some great stuff that way - two 24-port 10/100 managed switches, computers, hard drives, hardware, and even a 19" wide 7' tall aluminum rack for my stuff - with shelves! - by being in the right place at the right time.

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The point I am trying to make here is this:  If you are inventive and pay attention, you can build up a pretty impressive QA / Networking lab for pennies.

What say ye?

Jim (JR)

The "Hackintosh" Mac Clone

Here's an odd-ball one for you.

It seems everywhere you turn around, there is someone, or something, talking about the Mac.

Of course, at Mondo bucks per piece if you decide to go out and buy a Mac, buying a Mac "just for the %$#@ of it" is not a reasonable proposition.

Or, perhaps you want to do some preliminary testing on a Mac, because your product is supposed to support the Mac platform as well - yet you don't want to spend the time fussing with unfamiliar, (and expensive!), hardware just to find out that the latest Dev. release isn't worth the powder to blow it to Hell.

The solution is to build a Mac clone using a PC.

I will warn you, this is NOT a trivial undertaking.  You will have to look at the data and decide for yourself if you want to invest the time and effort required to build a Mac clone, or if you should just bite the bullet and buy the darn Mac outright.

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Fair warning:
Assuming you actually go out and purchase a legitimate copy of the actual software to create a Mac Clone, creating the Mac Clone, (though not a copyright violation), is still technically a violation of Apple's EULA - which says you cannot install Apple software on anything but Apple supplied hardware.

By the same token, slipstreaming a Windows installation with the latest Service Packs is also "technically" a violation of the Windows EULA.  However everyone does that all the time - and there are even Microsoft sites that explain how to do it. . .  So this is something you will have to decide for yourself.

Also note:  I've never done this myself.  I am just passing along some interesting information that I found while on the web wandering around.  As a result, Your Mileage May Vary.  And don't forget backups before you do anything weird like this on your machine.

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Now that we have that little blurb out of the way. . . .

It IS possible to build a Mac clone.  The reason is that - though the Mac software is very tightly bound to the Apple hardware, the hardware actually used is not unlike the hardware on a PC.

They use NVIDIA or ATI video hardware, just like the PC.
They use optical media drives - CD / DVD / DVD-DL / Blu-Ray - just like the PC's use.
They use Intel processors - that use architectures "just like" the PC's have.  (That is, unless you have an ancient OS-X release for the Power PC, and that doesn't count anyway.)
The sound hardware is, (often), very similar to - or exactly the same as - that used by a PC.

A USB mouse is a USB mouse is a USB mouse.  Likewise for the keyboard.  If you REALLY want to immerse yourself into the "Mac" experience, you can go out and buy "Gen-u-ine" Mac mice and keyboards that have all the special Mac keys with the four-leaf clovers on them.

So, what's the difference?

The folks at Apple maintain very tight control over the design and manufacture of their machines - ergo, the hardware environment is absolutely stable - at least as far as the operating system is concerned.

Because of this they can know exactly what to expect, and exactly what the range of variability is, when they design the software.  As opposed to the PC crowd where the O/S has to have forty-zillion drivers on hand to handle the wide variation in possible hardware configurations.

And because of THAT little factoid, Apple can absolutely guarantee that their software will install - and run - on their hardware with an absolute minimum of tweaking - if any at all.

The other side of this is that PC hardware is not tightly bound to the Apple's software - and because of this it's just not possible to wave a magic wand and turn your PC into a Mac.  There are many hoops you have to jump through to do this task - and the folks at Apple hope and believe that most everyone is too lazy to make this effort - and they will choose to just spend the bucks needed to buy the genuine article.

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Now that all of this has been said, let's get down to the dirty work.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you a "blow-by-blow" detailed spec on how to do it, as everyone's PC is potentially different.  What I CAN, and will do is give you guidance along the path and provide links to web sites that get into the Gory Details.

The first thing you will need to do is assess your hardware; and the best place to start is at some of the "Hardware Compatibility Lists" out there.  The OSX-86 Project Website has a pretty impressive list.  Though it's for the 10.6.5 version, you should be able to get pretty close with the list as it is.  At Ahsantasneem's "BLOG OUT LOUD" site they have a pretty comprehensive list of hardware - listed by version - along with links to various "gotcha's" like the EFT, and DSDT file - which you will need.

I did a dogpile search on "apple hardware compatibility list" and I received a bunch of interesting "hits" on that topic.  You may want to check it out.

Once you have verified that your hardware is compatible, (and that you can get drivers for this stuff!), you can proceed to either build up a system from scratch, or begin the installation process on your existing hrdware.  A good tutorial for that process can be found on the "makeuseof" web site.  It details all the things you need to know about configuring the motherboard you have selected, including BIOS settings, hardware gotcha's, and stuff like that.  Tonymac's web site also has good information - links to useful utilities - and a few caveats that the first site missed.  Tonymac mentions that you should not install with more than four gigs of memory in place.  The first site didn't mention that, so maybe YMMV?  I dunno.

One other caveat is that the normal, "plain vanilla" PC cannot boot from a Mac installation disk because the disk formats are totally different.  Instead of using the ISO9660, (et. al.) format, they use the "HPFS" format, which a PC cannot read on startup.  The solution to that problem is to use tonymac's "'startup wedge" software application, iBoot.  You boot this application, and it allows you to insert the Mac-formatted CD/DVD and continue the boot process from there.  (This site requires registration to download stuff. . . .)

After that, following the instructions on the makeuseof web site, you actually begin the installation.

Further down, after the installation is complete, you will, almost certainly, want to make use of the program "Multibeast", (also available on tonymac's site), to do some of the internal tweaks you need to do.

There are other things you have to do - one important one is the "DSDT" file, which describes to the OS how to use the hardware you have.  Very Important!  Both of the tutorials have site links for DSDT files, and there is another great site with a good tutorial on how to find, edit, and re-compile a custom DSDT file for your specific hardware.

Update:  "C" left a very interesting reply to this article, (see below), and mentioned his own blog:
http://www.macbreaker.com/2012/01/is-your-computer-hackintosh-compatible.html 

I popped on over to his site - it is excellent! - and he pulls together information and advice, both from his personal experiences and the advice from other Pillars Of Wisdom on this topic.

If you are seriously thinking of making a "Hackintosh" system, I would consider his site an absolute MUST READ on this topic. 

I have never built one of these myself, though I plan to, and I scrounged up a copy of Snow Leopard for just that reason.

One thing all the sites say, over and over and over again, is to use an entirely separate hard drive for this installation, as it needs to be formatted as an HPFS volume with a GUID partition table.  You can dedicate a specific machine to being a "Mac", or you can use a second - blank - hard drive for the Mac installation.

Once that's all done, you can worry about setting up a multi-boot environment and any other stuff you might want to play with..

It would be interesting to know how you make out, if you try this.

What say ye?

Jim (JR)