Luckily for us, there is a driver that works very well with OpenSuSE (I have also tried it with Ubuntu and SuSE Enterprise) and it can be found here.

Installing has never failed for me and the steps are basically (detailed instructions can be found at that site),

• Download it
• Untar it
• make
• sudo make install
• sudo make install-hotplug
• make cups
• yast2 printer

It has been working for me each time I install a new PC/Server with SuSE or OpenSuSE.  Great tool and please do donate to their effort.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
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Installing HP LaserJet 1020 Printer for OpenSuSE

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• About Us

In many other distribution, they provide various ways to do this and to ensure that it is correctly configured.  In SuSE and OpenSuSE, they provided the command insserv for this purpose.

# insserv –r hwscan

If you would like to stop the scanning of hardware configuration at boot time.  Normally, this is turned on but when you have the server configured and running optimally, you may want to disable it to ensure a faster boot up time.  To start it again at boot up time, just

# insserv hwscan

Of course, YAST also provide this, go to YaST Control Center –> System –> System Services (Runlevel).

Where you can enable/disable the services.

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
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How to start services automatically at boot?

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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
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How to mount NFS Filesystems at Boot Time

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

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

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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

or

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

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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
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How to remove GRUB from MBR of Hard Drive

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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:

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

Happy Trying!

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How to setup and enable OpenSSH

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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.

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How to change font size for Yast and Sax2

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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
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How to reset forgotten root password in SuSE Enterprise Server

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If you already have the SLED DVD, you can install from it by adding the SLED DVD as a new repository.  If you don’t, you can download the ISO image from Novell.

Once downloaded, you need to;

1. Start Yast –> Software Manager
2. Ctrl-R or go to Configuration –> Repositories
3. Click on “Add” and select “Local ISO image …”
4. Key in the location of the ISO image, agree to the license agreement and you will have it included in your repository 
5. Search for “openoffice” and select “OpenOffice_org”.  Click on “Accept” and it will install accordingly.
6. You will have it installed on your system.  Go to your start menu, click on “Application”, you will find OpenOffice.org application icons.

Good luck!

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How to install OpenOffice.org in SLES from a SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop ISO file

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However, you may get a permission denied when accessing this directory (this is a bug). And even as a superuser/root, you will not be able to enter, delete or change permissions of the directory.  When listing the home directory, you will get

d?????????   ? ?    ?       ?                ? .gvfs

Some applications will fail to execute and you are stuck!  Well, the .gvfs is a filesystem, so you can umount it!

umount /home/<username>/.gvfs
rm –r /home/<username>/.gvfs

You may not want to remove it but once you un-mount it, this should be a safe thing to do (as long as you never had a directory by that name before) but you may want to just check on it.

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How to remove corrupted .gvfs directory

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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 <userid>”.

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).

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

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For Linux, the official file manager for the GNOME desktop is Nautilus. In case you wondering the origin for Nautilus, it is a play on words. By evoking the shell of a nautilus to represent an operating system shell. Nautilus replaced Midnight Commander in GNOME 1.4 and was the default from version 2.0 onwards.

There are many ways to open an application in Nautilus. However, here’s a simple tip that you might not know. You can open special locations in Nautilus by entering the URI in the location bar. An Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a string of characters used to identify or name a resource on the Internet. You can invoke the location bar by using the keyboard shortcut key Ctrl+L.

For example, if you would like to show Computer and lists the disk partitions, you can type in computer:///. Similarly, you can try the following special location URIs :

network:/// to show the network locations
burn:/// to see the inbuilt CD application
fonts:///  to list the fonts installed on the system
burn:/// to open the CD Writing Window.
themes:/// to list the themes available for the Gnome Desktop
system-settings:/// to give access to system settings.

These URIs can be handy and it could be a time saver indeed.

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Open Special Locations in Nautilus with URI

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Heck no, an easier way is to

1. Boot into single user mode
2. Change password
3. 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.

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

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

Reboot

Simlpy type,

Your root password has been reset!

Post from: Suse & OpenSuse Tips
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How to recover OpenSuse Lost Root Password

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