OpenSUSE 10.2 Beta 1 as guest of VMware Server 1.01 / Ubuntu 6.10
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Well fine. Just fine.
Just as I finish Beta 1 of OpenSUSE 10.2, beta 2 hits the door. I'll try and get it down, and an update to this out before Friday if I can. wget's are running now, as I do the final edit on this.
Evolution under FC6 in MS-Exchange connector mode has gone down. Again. Works in IMAP mode. Fails in MS Exchange Connector mode. Now it is a brand new symptom. It won't let me enter my password. I give up, for now. At least Ubuntu / Evo works. Time to look around and see what else is out there. Say: I have an idea... what about the new upcoming distro from that company that bought the company that wrote Evolution? What was that called again?
This was supposed to be a quick and dirty install, so I could write about how well the new up and coming OpenSUSE 10.2 (tested here in Beta 1 form) compares to FC6 and Ubuntu 6.10 as a corporate Linux desktop. Nothing is ever easy of course. All I wanted was an OpenSUSE Virtual Machine, with Evolution 2.8.1 installed, so that it was a level playing field with the last few posts about Evolution on the other two distros.
VMware Server under Ubuntu
First off though, I had to get VMware going under Ubuntu 6.10, which is now the main OS on the desktop system. To make a long story short, I was missing two packages I needed before I could run 'vmware-config.pl':
build-essential
xinetd
Go figure.
Recently of course I have been using mostly using Fedora and SUSE: I never had to install xinetd ever: it was just there. interesting that Ubuntu's default is to not install it at all.
This 'build-essential' thing was new to me too. I used to just add the G++ compiler if I wanted to compile. Makes good sense to have it all in a package. Now that I know. Took a while to find it out though. Google is my friend.
Then there was that I had become used to using in Ubuntu the 'Applications / add/remove' tool to a add software. And the 'build-essential' package, now that I knew its name, was not there. I looked and looked.
It was available to install over in 'System / Administration / Synaptic Package Manager'. Ok: I guess. Advanced install tool for advanced usage package. I guess I get it. Now. It laid in about five packages, including G++. VMware was happy and compiled. That is all I wanted.
OpenSUSE 10.2 Beta 1 and Evolution 2.8.1
Once VMware Server was in on Ubuntu, and a VM configured, I booted the OpenSUSE 10.2 CD. And the VM went into a loop. Nothing is ever easy.
Another long story short: I needed to use 'nomce' as a boot parameter to get the machine up. This apparently stops Linux from checking for 'Machine Check Error', which in the VM it was finding with perfect ease and repeatability. Never had Linux guests do that to me before. As a test, I booted the current version of Mepis in a VM, and it booted without problem. Weird. No time to worry though: I am on a mission.
I start having I/O errors on the CD. Stupid old grungy hardware. Then I realized: "Stupid Hardware Owner". Why go this slow? VMware can read .iso as a CD image. I boot the .iso CD1 on the hard drive, use nomce, VESA graphics mode and finally OpenSUSE goes in. Uses .iso's for disks 1,2, and 3. All I pick as an option is 'Evolution-Exchange'.
Once everything is configured, and up, started Evolution using the weirdish new SUSE 'Application Browser' menus (geez: I hope I can turn that stuff off. I just want my old Gnome menus here.), configure it, and we have a working Evolution! Yea!
<time passes>
I have re-configured the menus back to looking Gnome-ish. I hate to sound like a Luddite; I am sure some will love the new menu structure. I might even get used to them, but I hate things being dumbed down, and right now this is what that feels like to me. I wish there was just a button someplace that said 'use traditional menus'. Sorta like the 'Classical' menus choice MS Windows has in XP. There is another example of where I did not like the new thing. Part of that was that I disliked the color scheme though: Vivid green and blue just didn't work for me. I personally need no extra stimulation from my computer screen. The words in the emails are usually enough.
Twenty four hours of poking at Evolution has not shown any major issues. Calendar is there, works, and actually appears to me to be faster and more solid than even the Ubuntu 6.10 version of Evo. Time will tell.
Gnome aside
One of my all time favorite features of Gnome (and why I use it more the KDE these days) is the control-center 'Font'. Having utter control over the screens DPI, and having all the apps obey that setting is just too cool. Even on the IBM T41, with its very small, very high resolution screen, I can get readable (to my tired eyes) sub-pixel hinted fonts that look amazing. There is no other OS from anyone that I have seen that has this trick. Not even OS.X. And if my eyes are extra tired, it is nifty to just slide the DPI up a bit till I can read the words on the screen that day. Only way this could be better is if there was a slider like the magnification one in iPhoto or Picassa there.
Codeweavers 6.0 beta 3
Nothing will probably be posted next week: I will be in the mountains of West Texas installing two 4500 liter water tanks. So I thought I'd make a quick mention here about installing and testing the newest Beta 3 of Codeweavers Crossover Office, on both the Mac and Linux.
Mac: In the short period I have tested it I can not see any differences between Beta 2 and Beta 3. MS Excel launches and runs pretty much like a native app. IE 6 seems to work, although it does not appear to be honoring my turning off 'smooth scroll' . My acid test is actually the utterly unsupported WordPerfect X3. It appears to be almost working, but again, no different from Beta 2 to Beta 3. I am guessing it won't be working at GA either, but they never said it would. This is just me wanting to have access to WordPerfect again. Shutdown of Crossover is much much faster. Not really sure it matters: the new NeoOffice 2.0 is solid, fast, and reads WP doc format.
Linux: Looking good! The main thing I have been looking at here is Outlook 2003. Beta 2 had O2003 crashing fairly often for me note: Beta 5 was under FC5, Beta 3 was FC6, but I doubt that matters.
Beta 3 has O2003 stability much improved, and it looks better too... although maybe that is just a better Gnome font DPI setting. It is fun to leave up Outlook 2003, and have the little fader for the new mail notification popping up, even if I actually read the notes in Thunderbird.
Looking ahead
I have been pretty focused on the Linux on the corporate desktop stuff recently, and there will be some more of that as OpenSUSE 10.2 goes GA. I do have some Linux in the data center stuff planned for the next few months as well. The desktop Linux stuff I do on my time: mostly nights and Geekends. Linux in the Data Center is part of my day job!
The US holidays will slow things down quite a bit: I am off for nearly three weeks at the end of the calendar year. I'll be doing what I usually do on vacation: working on my home in West Texas, where there is no phone, no Internet, no cell service. It's not quite maternity leave like Anne's but I will be offline for a bit. Unlike last year, where I had a huge (to write) five part series planned for holiday posting, this year I have not had time to write one of those so it's going to be pretty dead air.
I do have updates on a variety of things once I get back though:
Linux and ISCSI (best ISCSI initiator we have tested)
NAS: We are close to picking the replacement NAS for the TruCluster. It is not Linux based, but Linux surrounds it.
Virtualization Lab: I am in the process of working on a project to design a new lab. We call it the 'Virtualization Lab'. This will end up being a fairly long series of posts I think, and it will start with "Why performance per watt matters to us" which I have written the first draft of already.
I am not sure this one will ever see light of day: I started it two months ago, and it still isn't written. it's about "Linux on the edge", which is really about the "Edge of the network", and is some more "Linux on a laptop" mixed in with today's security concerns. This one may get more interesting at the controversy swirling around whether or not Vista needs anti-virus software bakes.
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