openSUSE 12.1 Part 1

Well, I checked the site about 8 minutes ago and it was there. Seems like it was officially released at 06:12 this morning (UTC-7). I'm downloading it now, and will burn it and stuff it in the laptop bag. I'll do all the testing later.

(edit 1)

Okay, I haven't really found anything different from RC2, but I did find a couple things.

To get my Bluetooth to work, the wireless has to be turned on. And I can use the function key for turning the wireless on and off to do so. And for some reason, I can't use my Bluetooth mouse on boot until sometime after wireless is turned on. For some weird reason, my trackpad got permanently disabled which didn't help the situation beforehand.

12.1 also did not ship with GRUB2 as I read somewhere in the openSUSE pages (either in the news or Wiki), but I can't find it and I don't feel like finding it. I really wonder why, since GRUB2 is so much easier to use.

I installed GRUB2 (the package in openSUSE), and then did an install of it. I guess I forgot to update-grub and when I rebooted, I was left at the CLI for GRUB2. Seeing how I'm not an expert at it, I can't get back into 12.1 to do so. My only two options are to either (1) reinstall 12.1 and re-update or (2) attempt to fix it with 12.1 live. I think the first option is the more viable one, since it doesn't really take too long.

Anyway, good thing I used a spare hard drive, since I would not have been happy to not be able to boot into anything. More to come.

(edit 2)

As I've thought about it, I don't really want to deal with the troubles of installing GRUB2 (at least for the computers that have multiple OSs on it anyway. I may just reinstall it on the testing drive for Triela, and see what happens, but I will need to test it on Mei Ren to see if I can flip the top screen upside down... Then again, I really don't want to enable wireless on every single boot, so I might just do this testing out of curiosity (and boredom).

Lie-chan is really the only viable (and "partial") install of 12.1 I could do, provided that I keep Ubuntu for GRUB2, since Lie-chan is hard-wired to the wireless bridge.

Anyway, off to finish a few things and continuing the experimentation.

(edit 3)

So I got done with all the experimentation.... Turns out I can't use update-grub (in any format) to properly populate the grub.cfg file... So definitely a no on GRUB2 in 12.1

Screen orientation still works just fine. One thing I noticed with the window previewer is that each screen has its own space, and you can move the windows between screens. Cool! I'm pretty sure it was already there, but I didn't really think much about it and didn't really test it out then.

One of the other things I noticed is that the "menu bar" only resides on one of the screens (main screen) when in a side-by-side configuration (and I'm assuming the same for the notifications bar).

Okay, here comes the weird part. When I booted into 12.1 on Mei Ren, wireless was automatically on. WTF? I'm going to safely assume that it has either has something to do with Triela or laptops in general (so either it's something with Triela+12.1 or 12.1 disables it by default for laptops).

Which means I can easily migrate to 12.1 for openSUSE only computers (Mei Ren and the jukebox). I could also migrate for Lie-chan, but I'm still very disappointed that 12.1 did not have GRUB2 as default.

I realized that I completely spaced the HDD from my friend, so I'm actually gonna have to wait longer to do the installation test for both Mei Ren and the jukebox, since I don't want to kill the existing 11.3 install if I don't have to.

I also tested 1080p on Mei Ren with 12.1 and VLC again. Nothing different in quality... Well, I did forget to turn the "GPU acceleration" on again, but I don't think it makes that much of a difference.

Well, I think that's it until I get the HDD for easier testing (well... easier roll-back).

openSUSE 12.1 RC2 Part 7

Well, I have about 16.25 hours left before the official release of 12.1.

I was hoping for midnight UTC time, but when it became that time, a new countdown graphic of "17 hours left" replaced the "1 day left". I feel like I was very, very mislead.

So I gotta wait until 10am until I can download and burn it (I'm gonna have to take a blank CD with me so I have something to burn on).

openSUSE 12.1 RC2 Part 6

Hmm... It looks a bit funny, but it works I guess.

I think I might have tried Chrome with M3 or RC1, I can't remember, but I should test it just in case. Probably last test since there's not a whole lot I can think of that I need.

Now that I think about it, I am going to miss gkrelm (maybe two "l"s?) a bit. I might be able to install it, but I'm not sure if it's going to work. I only used it for CPU temps, though I didn't really pay too much attention to it; it's just something that's nice to know every so often. Since I don't really do a whole lot with Triela (a few old games, but that's in W7), I'm not horribly concerned.

Anyway, probably won't say if Chrome works or not... I don't think there's a real reason to, since I'm quite sure it'll work.

openSUSE 12.1 RC2 Part 5

Nope. Still have to turn wireless on manually... It's not going to deter me from 12.1, but I'd have to see what exactly happens in a desktop environment... Which may take a bit.. I don't exactly have a desktop to install and test it on at the moment... The jukebox is probably the best candidate, but I don't really feel like messing with it.

When I get a hold of 12.1, I'll probably use it on Triela instead of 11.3...

OH! Which reminds me, I would be able to get rid of Ubuntu, since I only needed Ubuntu for GRUB2 and since 12.1 ships with GRUB2, I won't need Ubuntu. YAY!!!

So Triela will be a dual boot between W7 and 12.1 with the small test-bed space. Looks like I'll be merging the leftover space from Ubuntu into the "Storage" space since there's not a whole lot else I can do with it.

One thing I just noticed is that the cursor changes depending on something... In most cases it's white with a black outline, but in Firefox it's black with a white outline. At first I thought it maybe changed based on the background, but after opening a new tab (which is white) it didn't change to the white/black outline.

Gonna test out to see if Firefox themes work. Be right back.

openSUSE 12.1 RC2 Part 4

Bah, can't stay away for a second. So the easier way to switch windows is the old Alt-Tab trick. I'm not quite used to using it (I prefer to click on the window/application instead), but it seems like I may have to when I'm single-screening.

Om nom nom nom! (For real this time lol)

openSUSE 12.1 RC2 Part 3

Okay, so Network Manager actually works... Weird. My hypothesis is that it didn't load right... It could also be that it came broken and an update fixed it. Hard to say. Luckily, ifup isn't horrible to use as long as you're hard-lined to the router.

Oh, so apparently, 12.1 Goldmaster was released on the 11th... So that makes it a day after I installed and tested it... So I guess I should have waited a couple days. Oh well. I'm not going to make an effort to download and burn it at this point due to the fact that it comes out Wednesday (16th).

One of the things I didn't get to talk about with 12.1 is the battery monitor. It seems a lot more accurate than the old version. Triela's battery is only really able to stay running for about an hour (and maybe fifteen minutes), which the old version of the battery applet said 3 something hours... Right...

A bug I found is when it goes to an hour, it displays 0 minutes remaining (x%)... I'm assuming it meant 60 minutes and somehow the 6 was left off... Oops. The charge and time remaining is also shown in the power settings, so if anything I can hop over there to double check if the applet isn't being truthful.

OH! I just remembered about having to turn the wireless on after every boot. Obviously, I'm not quite sure if this still applies, but I can test it after I eat dinner.

We'll see what happens in about 45 minutes.

Om nom nom nom!

openSUSE 12.1 RC2 Part 2

Okay, I forgot about the favourites bar. If you hold onto the icon too long, you pretty much lose the trashcan icon. So pretty much, they made it common sense. You grab the icon and immediately head toward the bottom of the favourite bar to get the trash icon to appear. No need to do the awkward curve-ball to get rid of the icon.

I haven't gotten a chance to test out network manager, but so far I haven't been able to get it to work with eth0. When I was still plugged in, I couldn't access the internet. I had to switch to ifup to get anything done. I'll try again at some point with wireless when I'm at home to see if I can't get it to work.

Oh, so the power button puts the computer to sleep. I tested it out when I partially crashed GNOME3. So now the power button does something.

Well, there's 6 days and one more pre-release (maybe) left before the full release.

Looks like I'll just stick with this until the final release date, then I'll test that one out to see if it's something I'll be "upgrading" to.