turpial and glances error on openSUSE Leap 42.1

turpial (a Twitter client) doesn't start when started from the Menu - when started in a xterm/console the error is:

:~> turpial
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/turpial", line 5, in 
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
ImportError: No module named pkg_resources

Searching the error online shows that: installing python-setuptools which provides python-distribute resolves the issue. 

The package is missing the dependency on python-distribute.

The same is true for glances (python-glances) a monitoring tool. Glances doesn't start and shows the same "ImportError: No module named pkd_resources"


After installing python-distribute though, glances still doesn't start and gives:

 ~> glances
Curses module not found. Glances cannot start in standalone mode.

That can be resolved by installing python-curses.

mail - msmtp

recently I replaced postfix with msmtp and it works like a charm. not much configuration needed, only a msmtprc with a few configuration values set in the file are needed.
A description that helps is at: "Using msmtp as a Lightweight SMTP Client" and of course there's also the manualfor msmtp too.

firefox - URL in address bar doesn't load page

Entering an URL in the Address Bar and hitting 'enter' doesn't load the URL/page start firefox in "Safe Mode" (troubleshoot firefox #firefox -safe-mode now it works. Disabled the "Add-On"s one by one until I found the culprit. In my case it was the Twitter Address Bar Search

booting - grub text-based menu

To get to the GRUB text-based menu during boot, press 'Esc' to exit the splash screen and then press 'e' for edit.

Or another method: switch to command line mode by pressing the 'c' key

openSUSE 13.1 - UEFI dual boot

Don't let the errors trick you :)

Dual boot: Windows 8.1 and openSUSE 13.1.

After installation no boot loader - system boots into Windows
Selecting "Installation" - "Abort" - "Boot into installed system" allows to boot into the installed system, but that's an impractical situation.

The bootloader preselected at time of the installation is "grub". Trying to select "grub2-efi" and "enable secure boot" results in the following error:

"unsupported combination of hardware platform x86_64 and bootloader grub2-efi opensuse 13.1".

After the installation trying to mount the "EFI boot" partition (/dev/sda2 in my case) to install grub2 with: "grub2-install --target=x86_64-efi /boot/efi, the following error was printed:

"mount: unknown filesystem type 'vfat'".

After a lot of reading I finally realized I had changed the "Secure Boot" settings in the BIOS before.

Re-setting the BIOS "Secure Boot" back to "Enabled" and voila:

The installer automatically mounts the EFI boot partition with /boot/efi and the Boot Loader is already set to Grub2-EFI.
After the installation there are two entries in the boot menu: openSUSE 13.1 and Windows Boot Manager (on /dev/sda2).
selected "Security" in the BIOS top menu, then "Secure Boot Control" and changed that from "Disabled" to "Enabled". The "UEFI/Legacy Boot" was also changed back to "Both" System will boot by following UEFI/Legacy Boot Priority setting.
There's a really good How-To which I didn't follow entirely but it has helpful tips:
How to: Dual-boot (preinstalled) Windows 8 and Linux - UEFI etc.

VmWare-Workstation 10.0.1 on openSUSE 13.1

yes, it's possible.
Execute the .bundle file (make it executable with +x if it's not yet). After the installation the link/launcher of VMware Workstation is placed in the Application Launcher Menu under "Recently Installed" (KDE).

Make sure 'gcc' and 'make' are installed. When launching it, it will tell you that a couple of modules need to be compiled and you'll get an error about 'gcc'. Installing it compiling might still fail, so 'make' might be missing. After installing it everything went well here.

The logs are in /var/log/vmware-installer. So if anything goes wrong check the logfile.

I'll try to run another installation with 'make' missing to catch the error and update the posting. stay tuned!

vlc - playlist

unhappy with amarok's memory consumption -amarok 10.5% MEM vs. vlc 1.8%- I switched to VLC.
I'm listening to the same couple of radio stations throughout the day and had to figure out a way how to start vlc with those stations.
I thought the best way would be to save the stations to a playlist, but I didn't find a way how to save a playlist. After each restart the playlist came up empty.

Here's how it works for me now:

Media -> Open Network Stream -> Enter URL of the station's stream
do this for all stations needed
Save playlist to file. I saved it as "vlc-playlist.xspf" to my home directory.
Now you can either start VLC from the CLI with "vlc vlc-playlist.xspf" or add an Icon/Launcher to the GUI with the Command: "/usr/bin/vlc vlc-playlist.xspf" and vlc will start with the x stations saved in that playlist.

fuse - sshfs-fuse

tested on openSUSE 13.1 RC1
downloaded 2.4 at sourceforge.net, unpack and './configure'.

get the following error:

[...] checking pkg-config is at least version 0.9.0... yes
checking for SSHFS... configure: error: Package requirements (fuse >= 2.2 glib-2.0 gthread-2.0) were not met:
No package 'glib-2.0' found
No package 'gthread-2.0' found

Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.

Alternatively, you may set the environment variables SSHFS_CFLAGS
and SSHFS_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config.
See the pkg-config man page for more details.

install glib2-devel!

continue: ./configure, make and make install

then:
sshfs username@server:/directory /mountpoint

systemd - boot into emergency shell

when the the grub2 graphic boot screen appears press 'e', the grub text mode "setparams 'OS'" opens. move the error keys down and find the entry "linux".
go to end of the line to the last boot option and enter: systemd.unit=emergency.target
press F10 to boot and the system will boot into emergency mode/shell (just once).

on a side note: if there are more kernel installed find the entry (linux) matching the kernel you want to add the boot option.

permanent entries are added at the end of the line: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="" in the file /etc/default/grub.

(tested on openSUSE 13.1 beta) more infos on systemd: doc.openSUSE: Chapter 8. The systemd daemon

firefox - echofon

loved the app, because it gave me twitter updates in a small pop-up from where I could choose to my liking what to open and what not.
Now I'm getting: Can’t login to Twitter. (410 Gone (account_verify_credentials)) (for quite some time actually).
Today I got the time to look at it and found:Echofon for Firefox dies after Twitter API changes – Here’s how to get it back
I'm going to try it out later.

Update: works like a charm.