openSUSE 10.1 RC1 is here. Please read the announcement for details: http://news.opensuse.org/?p=305

I just finished a successful installation on Pegasos, it works really nice. For those 'compiz' fans, as root, add the following line to /etc/X11/xorg.conf to the other Load lines: and from the command line execute: On the EFIKA I still have to finish installation, so just one remark: goes a lot faster than previous alpha/beta/gamma releases, due to the improved package manager.
Sound does not work out of box, one needs to edit some config files manually to enable it.

For both machines:
One needs to boot the installer for the second stage of installation, and once installation is finished, use mkzimage as root to create a bootable kernel.

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

Is there going to be an step by step tutorial on what to donwload and on what steps to follow for installation on the efika? (Just like the debian instructions.) Or is that for the final release?

It was my plan for today, but instead of writing it, I spent my day tracing down some blocker bugs (blocker means, it must be fixed before a release can be done). So I would say early next week, and I really hope, that it is not the final RC, as planned...

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

Still fighting with the bugs :-( The checksum bug is gone, so there is no more question on booting the installer "do you really trust this installation source?".

The EFIKA sound problem is to stay, as only bugs blocking installation are fixed in last month of development. Workaround: open /etc/sysconfig/kernel as root in your favorite text editor (vi ;-) ) and search for the line starting with "MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT". Add two module names as parameter: and unmute sound using 'alsamixer' or your favorite mixer application.

Another hw detection problem is on the Pegasos: gigabit ethernet is not detected automatically. One needs to load it from the inst32 menu and configure it manually, as DHCP fails on it as well (it works from the command line, so it's a linuxrc problem...). Once loaded by hand, it works during installation, but not after. A fix was just committed while I wrote this :-)

Some additional notes about EFIKA and openSUSE. The official minimal RAM requirement is 256MB for the DVD and 512MB for the factory / ftp release. The EFIKA has 128MB, which means, that swap is badly needed. There are a couple of possibilities:
- use an existing swap partition
- create a swap file on an existing partition
- turn a partition into a swap partition
If the HDD is still empty, then has two choices:
- use an USB stick to create a swap file (slow)
- use the rescue system for partitioning the HDD and creating a swap partition (needs to now some command line tools, like parted and mkswap)

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

One more bug I forgot to mention (marked as ship blocker): mono based applications, at least those, which use graphics, do not seem to work on PPC. These include all those apps like: banshee, tomboy, f-spot, monodevelop...

And some good news: the fluendo mp3 codec is now included in the installation sources, even if not installed automatically. So those applications, which use the gstreamer framework can now play mp3 without downloading 3rd party software.

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

I compiled the first round of Packman packages for openSUSE 10.3 PPC. They are available at ftp://spike.fa.gau.hu/pub/pmppc103/ One can now use a nice command line utility for installing packages, so YaST is no longer necessary (yes, I know, that 10.[12] had rug, but that does not count). To add the repository, one can use: And to install mplayer and vlc: Both YaST and zypper complain, that the repository is not signed. I'll check how difficult is it to sign the repo, until that please trust me :-)

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

Peter, you are doing a great job keeping up with this. The SUSE team is also quite supportive, and we must say it -- Novell is too.

Lately, we noticed this (thanks to Matt): http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/linux_dr ... ckoff.html . Novell's support in general is becoming a solid example of broad general support.

Novell, the Spicy SuSE Linux PPC Team (if they still call themselves that!?!) and you are doing a great job supporting the community and the EFIKA. Thanks.

R&B :)

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

Please take a look at http://en.opensuse.org/Efika102 I updated the page with 10.3 info. As openSUSE has very good documentation, I listed here only EFIKA related problems and workarounds. If you feel, that an important detail is missing, let me know!

openSUSE 10.3 will be officially launched tomorrow, so one more day :-) Until that some preview, what is coming: http://news.opensuse.org/?p=341 Note, that some of these, like KIWI, are x86 specific at the moment. As all components of openSUSE are open, you are very welcome to help making a PPC port :-)

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

Great work all the way around!

R&B :)

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

And it shows some results (at least, I hope that this really means growing number of openSUSE PPC users): while download statistics showed 1-3% of PPC downloads for 10.2 and 10.3 alpha/beta releases, for openSUSE 10.3 RC1 and release, PPC downloads account for 8-10% of downloads.

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

It is their best interest, now that even Netware is going to run as a Xen virtual machine and SLED is the most promoted Novell product on Novell seminars :-)
Yes, they still call themselves that, and I just noticed that the team is actually growing, now with PS3/Cell developers. SUSE is very strong player in the super computing. Most Itanium machines are sold with SLES, here in Hungary most IBM POWER servers use SLES instead of AIX, and many clusters are being built around PS3/Cell now.

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/