Virtualbox on openSUSE 11.2

* make sure virtualbox-ose and virtualbox-ose-kmp-desktop are installed, they come with the OSS repository

* the first time Virtualbox OSE is started from the Startmenue -> System a pop-up window informs you:

"You are not a member of the "vboxusers" group. Please add yourself to this group before starting VirtualBox. You could do it using: Yast / Security and Users / User and Group management. Don't forget re-login your user account!"

* add yourself to the vboxusers group -> YaST -> Security and Users -> User and Group management -> choose the user you want to add the group to and enter "Edit", in the next following dialog, under "Details", vboxusers is one of the "Additional Groups" and can be selected.
or on the command line enter: groupmod --add-user vboxusers

Now you have to logout and login again so that the changes take effect.

* start Virtualbox OSE and in my case it converted previous configuration files over. The virtualmachines from my previous opensuse 11.1 installation were still available

I was able to start a SLES11 Virtualbox previously installed under Virtualbox openSUSE 11.1 right away.

Postfix sending mail & /etc/resolv.con on openSUSE 11.2

Sometimes my openSUSE 11.2 client is connected to a SLES10 router and DHCP Server, connected to another Linksys router.

I just realized that my connection dropped every 15 minutes or so, and I saw that my mail was still in the mailqueue and wasn't send out.

Sending an email with postfix I get the following error:
(Host or domain name not found. Name service error for name=relay.host.com type=MX: Host not found, try again)

So something is wrong with the DNS setting.

# host relay.host.com returns only the
relay.host.com has address _IP_address

I checked the /etc/resolv.conf and find the IP of the router in it, although my DHCP server should deliver the nameserver. Apparently the IP of the router doesn't work well.

In /etc/resolv.conf I read:

# Before you change this file manually, consider to define the
# static DNS configuration using the following variables in the
# /etc/sysconfig/network/config file:
# NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SEARCHLIST
# NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SERVERS
# NETCONFIG_DNS_FORWARDER
# or disable DNS configuration updates via netconfig by setting:
# NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=''
#


My settings:
YaST2 - Network Settings - "Global options":
Traditional Method with ifup

Hostname/DNS
Modify DNS configuration -> Use Default Policy

with the following DNS variables in /etc/sysconfig/network/config

NETCONFIG_DNS_FORWARDER="resolver"
NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SEARCHLIST=""
NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SERVERS=""
NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY="auto"

In /etc/resolv.conf the nameserver entry is pointing to the access point/Linksys router: nameserver 192.168.1.1



In YaST2 I changed Hostname/DNS settings to:
Modify DNS configuration -> Only Manually

The following changes were made automatically to /etc/sysconfig/network/config:

NETCONFIG_DNS_FORWARDER="resolver"
NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SEARCHLIST=""
NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SERVERS=""
NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=""

The last one: NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY="" is exactly the change needed and also documented in /etc/resolv.conf as well.

After I made the change:

# host relay.host.com returns
relay.host.com has address _IP_address
relay.host.com mail is handled by 5 relay.host.com

And my mail gets delivered too.

# postqueue -f

Flushes the email stuck in the mailqueue as well.

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (address bar and bookmarks)

I had problems saving bookmarks, the only place I could save them was in "Unsorted Bookmarks" or one out of three folder randomly in the list of bookmarks. very odd. Basically I was never able to scroll through the list of my bookmark folder and pick one to save the bookmark under.

The second problem: the address bar has square edges and is a layer over another address bar with round edges.

These two problems don't seem to be related but yet they are.

When I installed the new openSUSE 11.2 with the new Firefox version 3.5, the installation preserved my whole Firefox configuration (since I use /home on a separate partition), including a Theme, that is not available for this version of Firefox.

Once I changed the Theme, the problems were gone.

Dropbox on openSUSE 11.2

Although on the Dropbox download side I read: "Dropbox is supported on x86 and x86_64 versions of Ubuntu 9.04, Ubuntu 8.10, Ubuntu 8.04, Ubuntu 7.10, and Fedora Core 9. There have also been reports of users getting Dropbox to work on different versions of Gentoo, Arch Linux, OpenSUSE, and Debian."

I searched the openSUSE Build Service if a package is available. Yes, there is, I installed the nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1-1.1.i586.rpm for openSUSE 11.2. After the installation an Icon was available in the panel and I could use my login credentials to start using it.
Very easy!
Make sure, before you install nautilus-dropbox, you'll need to install those packages to resolve dependency issues upfront:

* GTK 2.12 or higher
* GLib 2.14 or higher
* Nautilus 2.16 or higher
* Libnotify 0.4.4 or higher

For user who don't want to use Nautilus, there is a CLI interface available as well. The above dropbox download link points to the instructions how to set up the script.

There is a Dropbox iPhone appliation available as well. Now I can easily sync my iPhone with my computer.

Virtualbox guest ping IP/host

First thing I wanted to do after I installed SuSE Linux Enterprise 11 in VirtualBox I recently installed on openSUSE, was, testing the network connection from the guest to the outside world.

How do I test network connections: open a console and type ping www.some_address.com.
Nothing was returned and 100% packet loss. No network connection? Networking mode is NAT, Adapter the default and the guest eth0 has an IP assigned via DHCP. What to do?

Read the Manual, there it is:
In the VirtualBox UserManual.pdf it's documented:
"Please note that the ping utility does not work over NAT, and ..."

Now what to do with ssh from the host or other hosts to the guest?
It's also in the same manual, chapter "6.4.1 Configuring port forwarding with NAT"

Haven't tried it, but it should work.

Where to get the manual:
virtualbox-2.0.6 UserManual.pdf

K3b cache write error

I tried to burn a DVD ISO image and got the following error:

flushing the cache
write error

So I set the Manual writing buffer size to 2MB. This can be changed in the Advanced configuration settings:

Settings -> Configure K3b -> Advanced

After I selected the image to burn, and the "Burn Iso9660 Image" window appeared, I also changed the Speed to 2.x

Then I successfully burned my DVD ISOs.


Also, k9copy is a great application if the DVD ISO size is over 4.7GB and doesn't fit on a DVD. With k9copy the content of the DVD opens as tree and you can select whatever you might need and want on the DVD up to the size of the DVD and then backup only these parts or "Titles".
For example you can skip all the previews and only backup the movie for example.
On linux.com is a good documentation aobut k9copy.

Skype: P2P connect failed

I just installed skype-2.0.0.72-suse. I couldn't login and instead got a "P2P connect failed" error. Obviously there were some spare files from a previous installation prohibiting the login. A rm -r .Skype in my users home directory resolved the problem.

Virtualbox on opensuse 11.1

A short and quick installation guide for virtualbox v2.0.6 on a Dell XPS M1330 with opensuse 11.1.

I installed Virtual OSE (opensource edition) available in the openSUSE OSS repository
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/

In addition I installed:

- virtualbox-kmp that has mandatory vboxdrv kernel driver
- Xalan-c package
- Xerces-c package

It's all described at the openSuSE Virtualbox_Installation guide.

After installing it, I loaded the vboxdrv module and added myself or actually my username to the "vboxusers" group:

# modprobe vboxdrv

# groupmod --add-user vboxusers

Logout and login in order that adding a user to a group is taking effect. The article mentioned above also explains how to auto load the driver after reboot.

I launched Virtualbox from the KDE Application Launcher Menu under "Recently Installed" applications.

Then I installed Windows Vista in Virtualbox. On this openSuSE page is a description how to create a new virtual machine.

After the installation:
The network was not working after the install. I read that I have to install the VBoxWindowsAdditions-x86.exe - "The 32-bit VirtualBox Guest Additions executable for Windows guest systems.".
I downloaded the VBoxGuestAdditions_2.0.6.iso from download.virtualbox.org.
In the VirtualBox setup screen under "Details", CD/DVD-ROM I checked the ISO Image File box and pointed it to the VirtualBox ISO.
Then I booted Windows, opened a file browser and pointed it to the virtual CD/DVD drive and with that to the ISO. The driver (network, video ....) got installed automatically.
Afterwards, network was available and automatic mouse/keyboard release. Network, both wireless and wired network work, although I read somewhere wireless is only working with IPv4.


I didn't have sound, so I had to change the Audio Host Driver to PulseAudio as this is the audio system I'm using. I know other people use Alsa, so whatever applies to your system.

So far these things are working and I was able to watch a movie on Netflix, my main and actually only reason, why I would want to use Windows.

connect iPhone to Laptop via Bluetooth

After it didn't work, I read postings that iPhones Bluetooth is for Bluetooth headsets (voice calls) and car kits only, but not for data transfer.

Even though "hcitool scan" or kbluetooth4 (kbluetooth4-devicemanager) finds it as localhost, if I select the device and enter "Next" I get the message: "Sorry your Bluetooth Device does not support input Service."

stuck in the boot process

One would think once the system boot stops at:
...
starting systems management data engine
starting dsm_sa_datamgr32d

the problem is with the systems management engine or IPMI, because it was right after that.
No, a second boot showed it just got stuck at:

...
Importing net file system (NFS)
...

and on another try:

"mount: RPC: Remote system error - No route to host"

So I had to boot into the Rescue System, mount the device where the /etc directory is on and take a look at /etc/fstab.

comment out my NFS exports in /etc/fstab

Booting worked well afterwards. Have to find out if I was just impatient (cause the NFS mounts were not available) or if it's a problem/bug.

set up a cvs server

After following the good documentation on:

http://linux-addiction.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-set-up-cvs-server.html

at 14) I got the following error:

cvs@sles:~> cvs -d ":pserver:testuser@localhost:/var/cvs/test" login
Logging in to :pserver:testuser@localhost:2401/var/cvs/test
CVS password:
cvs login: warning: failed to open /var/cvs/.cvspass for reading: No such file or directory


Could be easily resolved with:

touch /var/cvs/.cvspass

Next time I was able to login as described, "no error messages".

VMware-Workstation 6.5

after I installed VMware-Workstation 6.5 I was able to use my existing VMs.
After a reboot I started vmware again and when I tried to open a VM, I got the error:

"could not open /dev/vmmon"

# /etc/init.d/vmware status
Module vmmon not loaded
Module vmnet not loaded

So I did a
# /etc/init.d/vmware start

and everything worked as before. Guess I have to do an insserv vmware to get vmware started at boot up.

MozillaFirefox - openSUSE 11.1 - google homepage

I just tried to start my google homepage in MozillaFirefox on openSUSE 11.1 and it crashed

First thought I did an update of Firefox earlier, so I downgraded Firefox, but still google/ig (google Homepage crashed)

Then I saw on the terminal:

~> /usr/bin/firefox
*** nss-shared-helper: Shared database disabled (set NSS_USE_SHARED_DB to enable).
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

That brought me to Java as the culprit. I updated
java-1_6_0-openjdk - Java runtime environment based on OpenJDK 6 and java-1_6_0-openjkd-plugin on Saturday and didn't open the homepage since then. So I downgraded java-1_6_0-openjdk, didn't help either.

The terminal showed the backtrace and memory map of the crash and it was all in

*** glibc detected *** /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/../../bin/pluginappletviewer: free(): invalid pointer: 0xb7577254 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/libc.so.6[0xb7dcc654]
/lib/libc.so.6(cfree+0x9c)[0xb7dcdf3c]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so[0xb78d87e1]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so[0xb789b852]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so[0xb789d010]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so[0xb78a1435]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so(JNI_CreateJavaVM+0x5c)[0xb773e16c]
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.2_b11/jre/lib/i386/../../bin/pluginappletviewer(JavaMain+0x9e)[0x804a9ae]
/lib/libpthread.so.0[0xb7ecd1b5]
/lib/libc.so.6(clone+0x5e)[0xb7e313be]
[...]

I deleted java-1.6.0-openjdk and installed java-sun instead:

java-1_5_0-sun-plugin-1.5.0_update17-1.1
java-1_5_0-sun-1.5.0_update17-1.1

Now the google homepage is loading and the browser not crashing anymore.

Desktop Settings KDE4

How do I get from this grey panel (at the bottom of the screen)



to this black panel:



On my other computer I realized the panel was black and stylish. By the time I installed opensuse 11.1 on my laptop, I forgot how I had done this. So I went through all the KDE Configure Desktop Settings and didn't find it.

Then I came across the solution:



Right click on the Desktop, "Desktop Settings" and for "Desktop Theme" choose either 'Oxygen' or 'Elegance'.