openSUSE 13.2 RC1

While I wasn't exactly thorough with the beta, I did notice quite a bit of changes this time (either they were there in the beta and I didn't notice them or it wasn't in the beta).

One thing I'll mention is that hitting the "Activities" after a cold boot is still just as fast (if not a bit faster) as the beta, but "Show Applications" is now faster than it was in the beta or before it (even 13.1). On the Dell, the "Show Applications" problem I had is fixed.

While I'm here, I might as well point out the new graphical effect when you click on "Show Applications" (assuming hardware is able to support it). The icons and labels for each application floats outward from the "Show Applications" button in a similar way as the "Genie" minimize/restore effect in Mac OSX; the attached screenshot only shows the beginning part of it, as the graphical effect is pretty fast and isn't easy to capture, but I'm sure it helps make the effect a bit more understandable.


In the top-right menu, another button is added (presumably for laptops, as it did not appear on the Dell), which I haven't any clue what it's for, besides that it changes to have a lock on it when you click on it. With it being only for laptops, it doesn't really help to figure out what it is or is for. I'll see if I can find something on it later.


Confirmation dialogues are a bit different now: the pop-up greys the corresponding window (which I don't really remember from 13.1), but the most noticeable aspects is the pop-up itself - which now has no window decorations (the "x" for the close or a grab-able title bar is no longer present), and the buttons are much larger. It looks much cleaner and simple, which is a nice change.


YaST2's Software Manager also got a pretty large graphical update, which now has several tabs instead of the drop-down menu. The package info section also has tabs, which makes it easier to get to the respective section (say you're trying to get to the versions to install a specific version from a different repository). With how it's changed, the layout seems a bit more aesthetically pleasing than Synaptic.


As I had mentioned in the beta, some of the buttons have been moved to the top of the dialogue instead of being on the bottom. This was done (presumably) to utilize the extra space in the title bar, which makes the windows that much smaller.


Gedit was really graphically overhauled - some buttons placed into the title bar. Tabs appear when you click the new tab button, though there might be a preference to have tabs always shown (I didn't really look at the preferences). The "Save" button is decently large, which is nice, though I'm sure most of these changes were to accommodate touchscreen-based users. As you can see with the save dialogue, the "Cancel" and "Save" buttons are in the title bar and make the window smaller vertically. The menu button has the rest of the other functions and has the same look as Firefox's menu button. Gedit's menu on the GNOME bar is very desolate, seeing that it's something that's not going to be accessed very often.


YaST2's Boot Loader also was revamped graphically (this change can also be seen when installing RC1).


Also, the theme I've been using for 13.1 is now broken and incompatible. Mainly the radio buttons, checkboxes do not appear correctly when selected, rather they just show up empty. Luckily the "Oxygen Neon" cursor I've been using isn't broken, so that's at least something. The default dark theme isn't bad, but I prefer pink instead of blue - I may have to go looking for another dark/pink theme.

It certainly looks like everything is moving in the right directions and I can't wait to see how things turn out for the release.

openSUSE 13.1 and Touchscreen Part 3

Was able to do the test and the OSK glitch I experienced with YaST on the Dell wasn't there, and long-pressing also worked naturally (no jitter problems).

Not much else I can really say or do, since there isn't really all that much to test that would be different than the usual mouse/keyboard input methods.

Ubuntu GNOME 14.10

Compared to what I remember of Ubuntu GNOME 13.10, it's a lot smoother.

Testing went pretty fast, as there wasn't a whole lot.

The Iris icon set doesn't work, which was partially expected.

The "When Laptop Lid is Closed" seems to appear correctly, but the options don't work.

Synaptic Package Manager isn't installed by default, as I'm sure Ubuntu is pushing Ubuntu Software Manager.

It's feasible for a backup distribution, but I really know how to use openSUSE a lot better - namely searching for packages with terminal.

Debian GNOME Part 2

I installed Debian again on Triela, trying to make a custom Xfce colour scheme to use for Taiga and Sae, but ended up with GNOME instead.

Installing FGLRX just broke the system, so I had to manually install the open-source Radeon driver, which did work.

GNOME 3.4.2 was installed, so it definitely isn't viable yet, though GNOME 3.14.0 is in testing, so it'll be the next stable when it does, and so I may do some actual testing then.

openSUSE 13.1 and Touchscreen Part 2

My best friend recently won a laptop with a touchscreen, so I was able to test some of the stuff again.

Not much is different, besides the touchscreen being more accurate. I also found that selecting text looks like Android a lot, but instead of long-pressing the highlighted text to copy/cut/paste, it pops up after a couple seconds.

I forgot to test the long-press and the on-screen keyboard with YaST. If I get a chance to today, I'll test these.

Though the cursor doesn't appear, the last key on the virtual keyboard stays in the depressed state, so again, it's not much different than before.

iBook G4 and Debian PPC 4

I verified roughly 230 more files (bringing the total to about 10% of the files), and all of the checksums matched exactly. I'm decently certain that all the other files copied fine, and I don't feel like taking the time to check them all, especially when OS X (technically BSD) prints one space between the checksum and file name while Linux prints two spaces between the checksum and the file name (in Mac OSX, it's "md5", and in Linux, it's "md5sum", so it's not that surprising with the differences.

I found that I can turn off the Bluetooth mouse and back on while the system is running without any problems - I actually found this out sometime before I went to sleep, but I had forgotten. I think it's just a fresh-installation glitch that's fixed after a reboot, so now I can just treat the mouse like I usually do.

What's very nice is the on-screen keyboard that I installed (Taiga's original keyboard became unusable, since it would either print partial gibberish or not respond at all), so now I don't need to manually plug in a keyboard when I actually need to type something into the computer (albeit a virtual keyboard is much slower to type with).

I've confirmed that sound works just fine on Sae-chan by partially playing a song from my music library. I've also confirmed that the LCD removes the image from the screen when the screen is shut off (I used my phone's flash to put light into the screen), so the abnormal picture fade that Taiga exhibits with Debian is some sort of driver glitch (which I don't care to fix).

Taiga also seems to handle multiple tabs in Iceweasel a lot better than in TenFourFox (OS X), which is nice when I actually need it, since I don't have to be on-edge about how many tabs I have open.

I think that's honestly everything - I can't think of anything else to write about.

Things I've learned:

• The 8GB CF card is useless for test installations
• The 30GB IDE disk is best for test installations
• The Mac OS X FTP service is most likely crap (I'm not willing to spend time to test this)
• Reading files from an external HFS+ volume is most reliable with Mac OS X
• Use md5 -r in Mac OS X terminal to print a Linux-style file checksum line (though I probably won't ever generate checksums in Mac OS X again)
• My appreciation for Mac OS X has really depreciated (due to past and current events)

iBook G4 and Debian PPC 3

Well... That was definitely something else...

Since I had the 30GB IDE drive in Sae-chan (and had the Debian installation on it), I didn't want to use that drive for Taiga (for whatever reason that I can't remember). My other options were Sae-chan's actual drive (160GB IDE), Taiga's drive (32GB CF card in an IDE adapter), or and 8GB CF card. I opted for the latter, seeing as the other two were big "no-nos".

Debian failed to install to the 8GB CF card in the IDE adapter (for reasons still unknown) four or five times (I didn't keep a proper count), and I tried a couple different things... From using Sae-chan's combo drive, to using the net-install disk.

Eventually, I snapped and just used the 30GB drive and it worked first time without a problem (I believe I was also using the [recently released] 7.7.0 Xfce disk as well), so I tried once more on the 8GB CF card, making the swap size larger since I thought that was the problem.

And I was wrong, as it still failed. I went for a semi-blind install on the 32GB CF card, seeing that was my only real option to for proper testing, and it also installed without any problems. Again, I have no idea why the installation kept failing on the 8GB CF card (I even tried using GParted to make the partition map as "Apple" - "mac" as GParted has it - while I was in the 30GB installation), and the best I can say is that 8GB is just not enough for Debian (the drive size itself, not the space used).

I thought I was clear after that, but I was certainly wrong. The next problem was the power management for the display... Under the right circumstances, it works as it technically should, but for whatever reason, doesn't work correctly. Instead of a proper black-screen or turning the display off, the back-light stays on (when it clearly shouldn't) and the picture fades from the LCD in a weird way - the colours fade away (usually green is the slightly faster one) and leaves a weird patch of "blocks" which was the image. Maybe the picture fade from the LCD is normal, but since I've always seen the back-light shut off when it's supposed to, I can't say if it is normal or not.

While installing Debian on Sae-chan on the 160GB drive, I played around with the power management settings a lot to try to get the back-light to turn off properly, which never did; I also tried some video settings (trying to disable framebuffer or KMS), which also didn't work. The option I reached - an alternative I didn't want to use - was to pull the plug on the display and use an external monitor. I shut Taiga off and focused on getting Bluetooth and Wifi for Sae-chan, so that I can remove the 15 metre Cat6 cable running to the other side of the house (I didn't think I was going to spend as long I did with Taiga, so I thought I only needed the Cat6 for a couple hours). I then finished up installing what I needed on Sae-chan and went to bed after a 20-hour day.

This morning, I left the bed at roughly eleven (even though I wanted to sleep more) and grabbed one of the monitors that I used to use for Mei-chan, since it had speakers. After slightly rearranging the table and setting the monitor up, I booted Taiga and went to the display settings to disable Taiga's screen. I was quite displeased to see that the back-light did not turn off, and, before shutting Taiga down to unplug the cable to the screen, I decided to see what sort of resolutions I could use with the monitor.

My displeasure was counteracted when I saw that I could use the proper resolution of the monitor - 1440x900. While I had to slightly fix the video position on the monitor (third time I had to do so), it was nice to see that I'll have a lot more screen real estate for the windows (Transmission at its narrowest width takes almost half the screen at 1024x768). Needless to say, I shut Taiga down and unplugged the cable to the screen.

I then tried to get sound to work with Taiga (though on Sae-chan it's just a beep when, say, you try to backspace a text file with nothing in it), but couldn't get anything to work, so I just gave up on it, seeing as it was hardly important to have sound.

The only thing that's wonky is the Bluetooth mouse - if I turn the mouse off and back on while Debian is running, the input service (which makes the mouse move the cursor) doesn't reconnect properly with the mouse and I'm forced to add the device as a "new device". While I'm used to turning the mouse off when I'm not using it, I guess I'm just going to have to leave it on or maybe not use it at all, I'll have to see what happens.

Despite wasting so much time, things still turned out quite well - all the MD5 checksums that I used to spot-check the file transfers checked out exactly (though it's only about 7% of the files); I have a nice, large resolution to work with on Taiga (albeit Taiga's more like a Ronco Showtime Rotisserie & BBQ oven); updated programs (more updated than ones on OS X 10.4.11); a more stable FTP service (when I install it); and finally no major problems which would force me to revert to OS X 10.4.11 (heck, installing Debian solely from the disk still is faster than installing 10.4 from its disks).