Setup and Configure openSUSE 11.0

Let me start off by saying that openSUSE 11.0 is the best Linux distribution I have ever used.  There are some rough edges surrounding KDE 4, but the package management in openSUSE 11.0 makes huge strides over that offered in previous versions.  If you want to get up and running with openSUSE 11.0 then there are likely a few customizations you’ll want to make.

Setup Multimedia
This is a perennial setup step on Linux distributions.  We’ll install the codecs needed to watch DVDs, handle MP3s, etc.  We’ll also setup firefox to be able to handle Windows media streams.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “Packman Repository” and “VideoLan Repository”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Uninstall xine-lib and install libxine1, w32codec-all, libdvdcss, k3b-codecs, and mplayerplug-in
7. Open Firefox and type “about:config” into the address bar
8. Right Click > “New” > “String”
9. Enter “network.protocol-handler.app.mms”
10. Enter “/opt/kde3/bin/kaffeine” (output of “which kaffeine” at command line)
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Install NVIDIA drivers
If you have an NVIDIA card, then you’ll want to install the drivers.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “NVIDIA Repository”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Install “nvidia-gfxGO1-kmp-default”

Install CD ripper and ID3 tagger
For some reason, openSUSE 11.0 no longer ships with KAudioCreator or an ID3 tagger installed by default.  My guess would be that they haven’t been ported to KDE4 yet, but they’re nice to have, so we’ll go ahead and install them anyway.  We’ll also change KAudioCreator’s (stupid) default setting of not looking up CDDB information that hasn’t been cached on the local system.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “openSUSE BuildService - KDE:Community”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Install “kid3″ and “kdemultimedia3-CD”
7. Open kaudiocreator
8. Select “Settings” > “Configure KAudioCreator …” > “CDDB”
9. Set lookup to “Cache and remote”

Upgrade WINE
WINE is continuing to evolve and getting closer every day to reaching maturity.  You’ll likely want the latest version instead of the one that was the latest when openSUSE shipped.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Repositories”
2. Click “Add”
3. Select “Community Repositories”
4. Select “openSUSE BuildService - Wine CVS Builds”
5. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
6. Do a search for wine and click the check mark until version upgrade is selected

Setup a static IP address
Having a static IP address is very nice when you want to remote desktop to your server or access it in some other way without worrying about what the IP address is.  There may also need to be some configuration done on your router for this one.  Or you may prefer to investigate DHCP reservations if your router supports them.

1. YaST > “Network Devices” > “Network Settings”
2. Under “Overview”, select your network card and click “Edit”
3. Enter your static IP and save it
4. Select “openSUSE BuildService - Wine CVS Builds”
5. Under “Hostname/DNS”, enter your DNS servers and hit “Finish”

Setup remote desktop through NX
The two main remote desktop softwares for Linux are VLC and NX.  NX is much faster and KDE’s VLC server, KRfb, is broken openSUSE 11.0.  An NX server ships with openSUSE 11.0, but we want to install at least version 3.0 in order to do desktop sharing.  We’ll also open the SSH (NX is built on top of SSH) port in the firewall so that we can connect from another machine.

1. Download the NX Linux packages
2. Run “rpm -iv nxclient-3.1.0-2.i386.rpm”, “rpm -iv nxnode-3.1.0-3.i386.rpm”, and “rpm -iv nxserver-3.1.0-2.i386.rpm”
3. Run “/usr/NX/scripts/setup/nxserver –install”
4. Run “/usr/NX/bin/nxserver –keygen”
5. In your NX client, open “Configure…” > “General” tab > “Key …”
6. Copy the contents of “/usr/NX/share/keys/default.id_dsa.key” into the key window and save it
7. Open “/usr/NX/etc/server.cfg”
8. Change line 563 from ‘EnableSessionShadowingAuthorization = “1″‘ to ‘EnableSessionShadowingAuthorization = “0″‘ which will enable you to select “Shadow” in the client under the “General” tab’s “Desktop” framebox if you’d like to do desktop sharing
9. YaST > “Security and Users” > “Firewall” > “Allowed Services”
10. Allow “Secure Shell Server”

Setup Network File Share using Samba
WINE is continuing to evolve and getting closer every day to reaching maturity.  You’ll likely want the latest version instead of the one that was the latest when openSUSE shipped.

1. YaST > “Software” > “Software Management”
2. Install “samba” if it is not already installed
3. YaST > “Network Services” > “Samba Server”
4. Change sharing settings as you’d like and hit “Finish”
5. Add a user to Samba by running “smbpasswd -a username” where username is the user you’d like to create.
6. YaST > “Security and Users” > “Firewall” > “Allowed Services”
7. Allow “Samba Server”