Suse & OpenSuse Tips » tips

How to install VirtualBox Guest Additions in OpenSuse 11.2

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:41:46 +0000

VirtualBox Guest Additions allows users to get some excellent features like "seamless mouse integration", shared folder access etc, between my host (Windows 7) and guest (OpenSuse 11.2), and increase the screen resolution from 800 X 600 to 1024×768. Besides that, the Guest Additions also improve its performance and cooperation with the rest of the Product.

In order to install Virtual Box Guest Additions, firstly you should mount the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso from within the VirtualBox window. From the menu bar, go to Devices > CD/DVD Devices and select VBoxGuestAdditions.iso.

Next, you will be presented a Window asking whether you want to run the software automatically. Click Run.

Then, you will see the VBoxAdditions_3 icon displayed on your desktop.

In order to install VirtualBox Guest Additions, you got to be in the Root mode. In the console, type “su –“ followed by the administrator password. Then navigate to the media folder and type

“./ VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run install”

This should install the VirtualBox Guest Additions. In order for it to take effect, restart the openSUSE guest OS. You may notice right away after you restarted, your screen resolution has increased to 1024 X 768.

You can download VirtualBox from here.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to install VirtualBox Guest Additions in OpenSuse 11.2

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

How to install GNOME desktop environment theme in OpenSuse 11.1

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:43:01 +0000

Linux desktops in general offers users the capabilities to customize the operating system to meet any particular preferences. The OpenSUSE implementation of the GNOME desktop environment is no exception to this rule.

The theme of a desktop defines how various aspects of the desktop appear such as Controls, Window Borders, Colors, Icons and Pointers. In order to change the GNOME desktop environment theme, Theme settings are configured from the Appearance Preferences screen accessed from the Computer->Control Center->Appearance option.

If you would like to download and install other themes via the Internet, a wide range of themes are available for download from http://art.gnome.org/themes.

The new theme can be installed one of two ways.

Either click and drag the theme package from the desktop to the Appearance Preferences dialog to add the theme,
or click on the Install… button in Appearance Preferences and navigate to the location where the theme is installed.

Once the theme has been added you will be asked if you wish to apply the new theme to the current desktop. Good luck trying it out!

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to install GNOME desktop environment theme in OpenSuse 11.1

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

How to install Gnome/KDE Desktop Environment on OpenSuse 11

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:39:00 +0000

If you using OpenSuse and would like to switch from GNOME Desktop environment to KDE Desktop environment or vice versa, then this is a simple blog post for you.

In general, you can install GNOME/KDE Desktop Environment during installing of OpenSuse or after installation of OpenSuse. You can also switch from one desktop environment to another desktop environment easily.

During Installation :
During installation process for OpenSuse, you can select which desktop environment you want as your default, or which one will automatically load when you log into OpenSUSE 11.0, at the "Desktop Selection" section. Continue through the installation and you will come to a section called "Installation Overview" (check the left column for this heading). On this screen, you will see all of the hardware, settings, configurations and software that is about to be installed (since it is the last step before installation). Click on the "Change…" button and the software packages will load. Once they load, scroll down in the left column until you find the heading "Graphical Environments." Once you get there, check the following 2 packages:

To install Gnome:

GNOME Base System
GNOME Desktop Environment

To install KDE3:

KDE3 Base System
KDE3 Desktop Environment

To install KDE4:

KDE4 Base System
KDE4 Desktop Environment

Once you have checked them, click "OK" and finish the installation.

After Installation

The other method is after you have installed OpenSUSE 11.0. In order to install a new desktop environment, open YaST Package Manager, either by going into YaST (enter root password), go the "Software" section and then select "Software Management" or through the terminal by issuing the command: su, enter the root password, and then issuing the command: yast2 –install. Once you have YaST Package Manager open, the repositories will refresh. Once they finish, click the dropdown menu in the bottom-left of the window labeled: "Groups." Select "Patterns" instead and wait for the left column to refresh. Now, scroll down in left menu until you find the heading "Graphical Environments," select the following packages, and then press "Install All":

To install Gnome:

GNOME Base System
GNOME Desktop Environment

To install KDE3:

KDE3 Base System
KDE3 Desktop Environment

To install KDE4:

KDE4 Base System
KDE4 Desktop Environment

Switching Between Environments
Switching between desktop environments is fairly easy. For example, if you would like to switch GNOME to KDE, before you login, you will see a link in the bottom-left of the screen labeled: "Sessions." Click this, and a prompt will appear. Select the desktop environment you want to boot into and then enter your username and password. Once you do this, you will be asked if you want to make this session the default session: this means that if you make this session the default (weather you selected Gnome or KDE), that desktop environment will automatically load when you login, rather than having to into the session prompt and selecting it.

If you set OpenSUSE 11.0 to automatically log you in when it boots, this option will not appear. To disable the auto-login, open YaST and enter the root password in the prompt. Find the heading: "Security and Users" (you can jump to this heading by clicking the link the left column with the name "Security and Users"). Once the window loads, you will see the users on your OpenSUSE system. Click the dropdown labeled "Expert Options" and select the "Login Settings." In this new window, uncheck "Auto Login" (you can also uncheck "Passwordless Logins" if you want OpenSUSE 11.0 to prompt you for your password when you enter your username; this is suggested for security reasons, so if it is checked, it is suggested that you uncheck it) and then press the "OK" button. Now, click the "Finish" button in the bottom-right. Now, when you boot your OpenSUSE 11.0 system, you will be prompted to enter your username and password (if you unchecked "Passwordless Logins" in the Expert User option window [see middle of the paragraph]) and you can click the "Sessions" link to change your desktop environment. [via]

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to install Gnome/KDE Desktop Environment on OpenSuse 11

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

How to run Windows software on OpenSuse

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:12:00 +0000

Wine is a free software application that aims to allow Unix-like computer operating systems to execute programs written for Microsoft Windows.

Installation

To install Wine in OpenSuse, go to Yast software search for wine and install it. You can also install Wine from the terminal as su type zypper in wine. If you want to get the latest updates you need to add the wine repository here

General setup up
For general setup of Wine, firstly you need to install wine. You may refer to the post above. Once it is installed press Allt+F2 and enter winecfg in the text field (you can do the same by entering it in a console)

The first window shows the general settings. In the versions field
select Windows XP if it is not already selected Under about enter your name, you can leave the organization field empty if you want. You can enter your initials.
Set the sounds settings so that only AlSA is selected
In the Application tab you can add the applications you often use and set the default windows version for this i use "global settings" but feel free to experiment.
You can also add custom paths in the Desktop integration tab

Installing Programs with wine
Installing programs with wine is almost exactly the same as in windows. You just click on the installer .exe file. The first time you do this it is a good idea to right click and choose other enter wine in the field and check remember application choice. Quite often you will not be able to run the latest version with wine. For example the latest version of Photoshop is CS4 but wine will only run up to CS2. [via]

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to run Windows software on OpenSuse

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

Automatically dating your tar backups

admin — Wed, 06 May 2009 05:38:01 +0000

Normally, we use the tar command coupled with some compression program such as gzip to create a backup of our directories. I.e.

# tar -cf /var/log/backup/tux.tar /home/tux

to backup the home directory of the user tux into the directory /var/log/backup.

However, if we are going to do this on a regular basis, we will be overwriting the file tux.tar. This would mean that we will only have one snapshot of the user tux home directory.

To keep copies of backups from different times, you will need to use different filenames, preferably with a date indicator. You can easily do this by,

# tar –cf /var/log/backup/tux-`date +%F`.tar /home/tux

Of course, if you backup a few times within the day, then you may want to use a different option from the +%F format option.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Automatically dating your tar backups

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

How to mount NFS Filesystems at Boot Time

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:42:56 +0000

Network File System (NFS) is a network file system protocol originally developed by Sun Microsystems in 1984. With NFS, clients can mount filesystems across the network that are being offered by NFS servers and can work with them as if they were filesystems mounted from local disks. NFS is a simple and widely used method of sharing files across the network.

It is possible that you may want to mount particular NFS filesystems at boot time. You may also want to allow non-root users on the client to mount NFS shares themselves. In either of these cases, you will need to include a suitable entry in the file /etc/fstab. Just as this file controls the local filesystems that are to be mounted, it can also control the mounting of NFS shares.

For example, with this entry in /etc/fstab on the client:

susetips:/test /testmount nfs user,noauto,ro 0 0

any user on the client can mount (read-only) the specified directory from susetips on the specified mount point simply by issuing the command mount /testmount.

To force the directory to be mounted automatically, you might use the following:

susetips:/test /testmount nfs rw 0 0

This line in /etc/fstab ensures that the NFS share is mounted read-write whenever the system boots, provided that the service nfs is set to start in runlevel 3 on the client.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to mount NFS Filesystems at Boot Time

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

Using redirections: 2>&1 (Part 2 of 2)

admin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:21:45 +0000

If you go through enough shell scripts, you will notice the frequent use of 2>&1. What does it mean and how it works?

We have briefly introduced standard in (stdin) and standard out (stdout). In the command line interface and also in shell programming, these are represented as follows:

0 Standard In (STDIN)
1 Standard Out (STDOUT)
2 Standard Error (STDERR)

The 2>&1 basically means that to redirect standard error (STDERR) to standard out (STDOUT). We use tar to archive the home directory of the user susetips and redirect the verbose output to a file bak.log as an example;

# tar cvf susetips.bak /home/susetips >> bak.log
tar: Removing leading ‘/’ from member names

The command above basically kept a listing of the files that were backed up in the file bak.log. This file can be kept as a reference to know what files were actually backed up. However, there’s a message from the tar command that still appeared on the terminal. This message is a warning/error message that outputs to STDERR, which in this case is the terminal. The >> redirection just puts the STDOUT to the file but not the STDERR. To redirect the STDERR to the same place as the STDOUT;

# tar cvf susetips.bak /home/susetips >> bak.log 2>&1
#

Where the 2 represented STDERR, > means redirect to and &1 is the variable name for STDOUT. You can check the content of the file bak.log by using the cat command.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Using redirections: 2>&1 (Part 2 of 2)

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

Using redirections; , >> (Part 1 of 2)

admin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:51:16 +0000

Redirections can be sometimes confusing to learn and utilize effectively. We will try to explain it in the simplest possible way that we think is effective. Please feel free to suggests a better approach to explaining it.

Firstly, the 3 basic redirections.

< ; this less than symbol is to instruct the shell to read from a file instead of the standard input (stdin) which is generally the keyboard. As an example, assuming that you have a file 2compute and using the command bc (basic calculator), you can redirect the content of 2compute for bc.

# cat 2compute
1 + 1
2 / 2
# bc < 2compute
2
1
#

> ; the greater than symbol is to redirect the standard out (stdout) to a file instead of the screen/monitor (depending on what stdout is defined as). As an example, the ls command which list the content of your directory will display it on your terminal. We can redirect the output into a file (we use mydirectory as an example)

# ls
bin Desktop Distribution Documents susetips
# ls > mydirectory
# cat mydirectory
bin
Desktop
Distribution
Documents
mydirectory
susetips

>> ; similarly to the > symbol, using double greater than will append to the specified file as oppose to overwriting the file (if it exists). Following our previous example, if you use the single >, it will overwrite the old file. Using the double >, it will append to it.

# cat mydirectory
bin
Desktop
Distribution
Documents
mydirectory
susetips
# ls > mydirectory
# cat mydirectory
bin
Desktop
Distribution
Documents
mydirectory
susetips
#ls >> mydirectory
# cat mydirectory
bin
Desktop
Distribution
Documents
mydirectory
susetips
bin
Desktop
Distribution
Documents
mydirectory
susetips
#

Next, the puzzling 2>&1

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Using redirections; <, >, >> (Part 1 of 2)

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

Using the “date” command and it’s % options

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:03:51 +0000

Well, you can’t really get a date with this command but it is a very useful command to know for administrative tasks as well as for automatic documentation through scripting.

However, the date command’s options often baffles a lot of people (well, in my administering SuSE Linux class anyway) especially when they read about the formatting using the % symbol on the man pages.

Let me briefly extract what the man pages say;

NAME
    date – print or set the system date and time

SYNOPSIS
    date [OPTION] … [+FORMAT]
    date [-u|—utc|—universal] [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]

DESCRIPTION
    … blah blah …

    FORMAT controls the output. The only valid option
    for the second form specifies Coordinated
    Universal Time. Interpreted sequences are:

    %%    a literal %
    …
    %F    full date; same as %Y-%m-%d

I have seen many different attempts at trying to understand how to use the %F, e.g.

# date %F

# date –F

However, it is actually quite clear but somehow it is not the usual UNIX/LINUX command option format. To get the date in the format 2009-04-17 (today’s date), you simply do

# date +%F
2009-04-17

It becomes obvious after you read the man page again.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Using the “date” command and it’s % options

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

How to remove GRUB from MBR of Hard Drive

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:48:57 +0000

If you are running multiboot operating systems from your hard drive then you will require GRUB. It is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Multiboot Specification, which allows a user to have several different operating systems on their computer at once, and to choose which one to run when the computer starts. With GRUB, it can be used to select from different kernel images available on a particular operating system’s partitions, as well as to pass boot-time parameters to such kernels.

However, if you are facing difficulties with your GRUB and would like to remove it from the Master Boot Record (MBR) of your hard drive, there are two ways to do so:

1. If you have Windows XP installed, then you can boot to XP’s recovery console and run the “fixmbr”. (Microsoft’s Help and Support)

2. You could download SuperGrubDisk and fix your xp bootloader. You could delete the MBR but first, make a backup. Assuming that you have one disk, sda, run the following command as root:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/home/xxxx/bkupmbr.img bs=446 count=1

Replace xxxx with whatever your user name is. Command above makes backup of mbr.

To delete mbr run command:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1

Happy Trying!.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to remove GRUB from MBR of Hard Drive

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

How to setup and enable OpenSSH

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:09:55 +0000

OpenSSH is a FREE version of the SSH connectivity tools. For many users of telnet, rlogin, and ftp, they may not realize that most of the time their password is transmitted across the Internet unencrypted. With OpenSSH, it encrypts all traffic (including passwords) to effectively eliminate eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and other attacks. Besides that, OpenSSH provides secure tunneling capabilities and several authentication methods, and supports all SSH protocol versions.

To setup and enable OpenSSH for SUSE/OpenSUSE, here are some simple steps to take:

Navigate to Yast
Select install software
From within the search box type openssh and choose install
Now get back to yast and go to security and users
Select firewall and select allowed services
From the services to allow, choose the secured shell server (refer to the above picture)

Happy Trying!

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to setup and enable OpenSSH

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

How to change font size for Yast and Sax2

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:22:20 +0000

Sometimes the font size for your newly installed SUSE is too small for your reading pleasure. There are several ways to configure the font size. One method is to use the configuration utility for your window manager.

If you are using KDE then the configuration utility is called kcontrol. You can run it by typing kcontrol at a command prompt in a terminal emulator window. If you are using Gnome then you can select fonts by running gnome-control-center. This method however does not rectify the font size for Yast and Sax2. The other way is to go into the terminal, type su and enter root password, then type qtconfig and just choose the font that you want to use.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to change font size for Yast and Sax2

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

How to reset forgotten root password in SuSE Enterprise Server

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 06:16:42 +0000

We do sometimes forget our passwords and what more when we don’t login to that particular account regularly. As good system administrators who automate most of the administrative tasks, we sometimes do not login to the root account often. This is especially so for a highly reliable and robust SLES based system.

Our earlier posting was for OpenSuSE, but for SuSE, the security is even tighter. The following technique would also work for OpenSuSE, and also most other distributions.

(1) Boot your server using the installation DVD. If the server is already powered on, you will need to do a hard power-on as you can’t shutdown (since you don’t have the root password).

(2) Select “Resue System” and login as root. No password is required here.

(3) You have now booted into the live DVD, that is, you have booted from the DVD and the file system mounted is that of the DVD. You will need to access your Hard Disk Drive which is not mounted by default. (In my scenario, my SuSE 11 partition is on an extended partition and is on device /dev/sda7. Yours maybe different and if your system is a pure SuSE 11 (which should be the case), it is likely to be /dev/sda1, if using SATA or SCSI. If using IDE, you can try /dev/hda1. To access (mount) the SuSE 11 partition on directory /mnt;

#mount /dev/sda7 /mnt

(4) Edit /mnt/etc/shadow which is where the encrypted passwords are stored. Note that you are not suppose to edit /etc/shadow which is one used for the Live DVD. Furthermore, you won’t be able to save the /etc/shadow as it is a read-only filesystem.

(5) Search for the entry starting with “root:”.

(6) Remove 2nd field (the fields are separated by the ‘:’, resulting in something that resembles

root::14329::::::

(7) Save and exit your editor. Remove your DVD.

(8) Boot into single user mode by keying in “single” at the GRUB boot menu. You will not be able to access or change root password if you boot into graphical mode.

(9) After booting, you will be greeted on the command line with “Press enter for login:”, do as it says and you are in.

(10) Change root password by “passwd”. There you go … and reboot.

Any comments or ideas for further improvement are most welcome.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to reset forgotten root password in SuSE Enterprise Server

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

Novell Launches SuSE 11

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:35:00 +0000

Novell on Wednesday (24th March 2009) launched SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, with the capability for policy-driven system management and enhancements to its high-availability clustering.

SLES 11 also will soon be certified to run in the Amazon EC2 cloud, Novell officials said.

Some of the highlights of the latest version of SLES 11 are;

Runs .NET applications on Linux

This is achieved by the Mono extension and since SuSE is the leading Linux distribution for non-x86 machines, it means that .NET applications can run on the IBM system Z machines!

Includes Moonlight

The Linux version of Microsoft’s Silverlight.

Support for OOXML

Simply put, compatible with Microsoft Office’s native file. This was already available in SLED 10 but it is announced that they will ship it with OpenOffice.org Novell Edition.

There aren’t much significant updates from SLES 10 and most of the highlights of the announcement has to do with integrating with Microsoft seamlessly.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Novell Launches SuSE 11

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

What’s the difference between “su” and “su –”?

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:54:13 +0000

We get asked this question quite often and maybe it is good to give a simple explanation. “su” by itself means that you would like to assume the super user identity. You can also assume the identity of another user using “su ”.

Then, many people actually ask why do we usually type “su –” instead of just “su”? The main difference is that the one with the “-“ will run the to-be-assumed userid’s startup scripts which will basically mean that you will have the environment settings (such as $PATH) as though you are logged in as the new userid. Without the “-“, you will have the environment settings of the current userid (probably your userid).

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

What’s the difference between “su” and “su –”?

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips:

Differential backup script sample

How to recover OpenSuse Lost Root Password

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:19:51 +0000

Hopefully not but from time to time, we may somehow forgot what our root password is. This can happen in the case where you are managing a teaching laboratory, CAD/CAM workstations or your grandmother’s OpenSuSE PC! These are situations where once the machine is setup, you rarely need to have system administration access. So, the first answer is … re-install!

Heck no, an easier way is to

Boot into single user mode
Change password
Reboot

Booting into single user mode

Assuming that you did not password protect your GRUB boot loader (default boot loader for most Linux distribution), to boot into single user mode in most Linux distribution, you simply need to ask it to boot into single user mode (runlevel 1) but as rightly pointed out (see comment), in OpenSuSE, instead of simply pressing “1” when greeted with the following screen, you need to instead input “init=/bin/sh“. By pressing “1″, you will still be required to enter the root password.

GRUB startup

(Note, not all GRUB screens are like that, if by pressing “1”, it boots immediately, then the next time, press ESC to go to the text based menu. From there, select the entry and press “e” to edit and then go to the boot instruction line and press “e” again. You can then add the “1” at the end of the command. Press “b” after that to boot)

Change password

Once in single user mode, you should just get the following command line prompt.

your-hostname:~ #

You are actually logged in as root (superuser) and you can change the password from there.

your-hostname:~ # passwd
Changing password for root.
New Password:

Enter your new password (and this time remember it!). You should see the following to confirmed that the password has changed.

Reenter New Password:
Password changed.

Reboot

Simlpy type,

your-hostname:~ # reboot

Your root password has been reset!

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to recover OpenSuse Lost Root Password

---
Related Articles at Suse & OpenSuse Tips: