I’m going to begin this rant by saying that there are some things that that the Stack Exchange network is really good with: mainly, programming help.

However, it really sucks when it comes to providing help with a specific application where there is already a community. For the past year, I have been the #1 person to answer questions on tor.stackexchange.com. I’m not saying that to pat myself on the back; just to say that I have actually been doing this for a little while. However, I feel that many, if not most, of the questions should never have been there. Here’s what I mean:

1. Nobody googles anything for themselves anymore. A huge number of questions have been answered time and time again and can be found by just searching.
2. Nobody reads documentation or man pages.
3. There are better places to ask the questions.

While #1 and #2 are annoying, it’s #3 that I want to focus on. For example, we get a lot of questions about running Tor relays. Many times, I will copy and paste from the documentation and answer their question. However that question should never have been there at all. It should have been posted to the tor-relays mailing list. That way more people who actually run relays can answer and give better insight. Also other newbies to the list can learn also and the person asking the question can actually be a part of the community.

When it comes to subreddits that are based on a specific application like Tor, take my 3 examples and multiple it by 1000x because it is a continual cycle of the same crap week after week. I had to leave before I flamed someone for asking the same stupid question for the 9th time in a row. I miss good netiquette.

Free Download Manager adalah salah satu aplikasi download manager populer di Windows sebagai alternatif dari Internet Download Manager (IDM) yang berbayar. Saya biasa menggunakan ini ketika masih menggunakan Windows XP dulu, tapi sayangnya dulu tidak ada versi Linux.

Namun sejak versi 6 Free Download Manager menyediakan versi Linux walaupun berbentuk .deb. Tapi ini bisa kita gunakannya di openSUSE, walaupun openSUSE menggunakan .rpm. Free Download Manager untuk Linux bisa diunduh dari halaman ini.

Untuk dijalankan di openSUSE, setelah file freedownloadmanager.deb berhasil diunduh, ekstrak file tersebut dengan klik kanan > extract dari file manager. Di dalam folder hasil extrak ada beberapa file yang salah satunya bernama data.tar.xz. Extrak file tersebut dan ubah folder hasil extrak dari data menjadi FDM (dengan huruf besar) lalu pindahkan ke ~/bin di homedir.

Lalu buat sebuah file teks dengan nama fdm (dengan huruf kecil) dan isi file tersebut dengan:

#!/bin/bash

DIR=$(dirname "$0")
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb # Jika menggunakan sesi Wayland
exec $DIR/FDM/opt/freedownloadmanager/fdm "$@"

Opsi export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb digunakan jika kita menggunakan sesi Wayland, karena sepertinya Free Download Manager belum memiliki dukungan untuk Wayland.

Buat file tersebut menjadi executable dengan perintah chmod +x ~/bin/fdm atau melalui file manager Dolphin dengan cara klik kanan > Properties, pada tab Permissions centang Is executable.

Pindahkan atau salin file freedownloadmanager.desktop dari ~/bin/FDM/usr/share/application ke ~/.local/share/applications (buat folder applications jika tidak ada). Juga pindahkan atau salin file icon.png dari ~/bin/FDM/opt/freedownloadmanager ke ~/.local/share/icons (buat folder icons jika tidak ada), lalu ubah namanya dari icon.png menjadi fdm.png.

Buka file freedownloadmanager.desktop yang berada di ~/.local/share/applications menggunakan teks editor. Ubah bagian Exec=/opt/freedownloadmanager/fdm menjadi Exec=fdm saja. Ubah juga bagian Icon=/opt/freedownloadmanager/icon.png menjadi Icon=fdm.

Terakhir, periksa apakah paket libgthread-2_0-0 sudah terpasang dengan perintah zypper search --installed-only libgthread. Jika Anda memasang openSUSE dengan cara minimal/custom install seperti saya bisa saja belum terpasang. Jika belum terpasang Anda bisa memasangnya dengan perintah su -c "zypper install libgthread-2_0-0" atau bisa juga hanya mengunduhnya saja dengan perintah su -c "zypper install --download-only libgthread-2_0-0" lalu cari file hasil unduh di /var/cache/zypp/packages/repo-oss/x86_64 extrak file tersebut lalu pindahkan atau salin isinya ke ~/bin/FDM/opt/freedownloadmanager/lib.

Langkah terakhir adalah mengintegrasikannya dengan web browser yang kita gunakan. Jika menggunakan Falkon kita bisa mengaturnya di Preferences > Downloads, centang bagian Use external download manager dan isi kolom Executable: dengan fdm. Untuk browser lain seperti Firefox, Chrome/ium bisa memasang FDM extension melalui web store masing-masing (saya belum mencobanya).

Setelah semua selesai kita bisa langsung menggunakannya untuk mengunduh openSUSE Leap terbaru.

Dear Tumbleweed users and hackers,

Week 27 has mostly been in the light of the release of openSUSE Leap 15.2. With the developers mostly focusing on getting the best Leap release yet out of the door, it’s just natural that Tumbleweed has seen a bit less of churn. But honestly: has it? We have released 6 snapshots during this week so that does not talk for the ‘less active development’ of Tumbleweed during this period. The snapshots released were 0625, 0626, 0627, 0628, 0630, and 0701.

The most relevant changes in these snapshots were:

• Linux kernel 5.7.5
• KDE Plasma 5.19.2
• systemd 245.6
• Mesa 20.1.2
• Valgrind 3.16.0
• hplip 3.20.6

So, not much of a slow-down to be seen. And the staging projects are also still busy with various things, like:

• Python3 packaging rework: switch away from multiple spec files to OBS multi build flavors.
• openSSL 3.0
• RPM change: %{_libexecdir} is being changed to /usr/libexec. This exposes quite a lot of packages that abuse %{_libexecdir} and fail to build

Llegamos al plasmoide número 152 presentados en el blog con Panon un ecualizador visual de audio en tu escritorio con el que podrás disfrutar más de la música en tu entorno de trabajo favorito.

Panon, un ecualizador visual de audio en tu escritorio- Plasmoides de KDE (152)

Hace tiempo que este plasmoide rondaba por el blog, listo para ser presentado, pero no había visto bien su uso ya que pensaba que se ejecutaba en la consola, lo cual no es cierto.

Panon es fruto del trabajo de RBN43 y nos permite poner en el fondo de escritorio o en una barra de tareas un ecualizado visual realmente impresionante y precioso.

Lo mejor es ver un vídeo de su funcionamiento:

Y como siempre digo, si os gusta el plasmoide podéis “pagarlo” de muchas formas en la nueva página de KDE Stre, que estoy seguro que el desarrollador lo agradecerá: puntúale positivamente, hazle un comentario en la página o realiza una donación. Ayudar al desarrollo del Software Libre también se hace simplemente dando las gracias, ayuda mucho más de lo que os podéis imaginar, recordad la campaña I love Free Software Day 2017 de la Free Software Foundation donde se nos recordaba esta forma tan sencilla de colaborar con el gran proyecto del Software Libre y que en el blog dedicamos un artículo.

Más información: KDE Store

¿Qué son los plasmoides?

Para los no iniciados en el blog, quizás la palabra plasmoide le suene un poco rara pero no es mas que el nombre que reciben los widgets para el escritorio Plasma de KDE.

En otras palabras, los plasmoides no son más que pequeñas aplicaciones que puestas sobre el escritorio o sobre una de las barras de tareas del mismo aumentan las funcionalidades del mismo o simplemente lo decoran.

If the question is, ‘Can you install GNU/Linux on a phone?,’ the answer is yes. It is possible to install and enjoy openSUSE on a Pinephone.

This is a english translation provided by a follower of this blog (thanks a lot Tim) of an spanish article I published days ago and you can find here.

If you are a regular or occasional reader of this blog, I assume you have an interest (perhaps a passion) for GNU/Linux, free software and hardware, and are interested in using this OS in as many devices as possible.

Perhaps you haven’t yet managed to install it on your smartphone, but probably not for lack of desire! The solution is getting closer. First there was Ubuntu Touch, followed by UB Ports.

It is difficult to find compatible hardware, but Pine64’s Pinephone terminals offer hackers a device that can function with many GNU/Linux distributions.

By chance, I met the other day with a hacker who installed GNU/Linux on a Pinephone: specifically, openSUSE with the Xfce desktop. Adrián Campos Garrido (aka. hadrian) is a fellow Spaniard, so I decided to conduct an exclusive interview for this blog.

Vhck: Can you tell us a little about your background. How did you get interested in hacking?

Adrián: The word ‘hacking’ might not be the most appropriate. I started in the GNU/Linux world at the age of 17 (in 2006) and I liked the OS so much that I started to study how it worked. That led me to collaborate on the creation of the Wifislax distro, which is quite well known to the community.

I advanced little by little in system administration, and I learned on my own by dedicating many hours to different projects. I now work as a Technical Architect in BBVA Next Technologies, and like to continue trying new things in my free time … including the installation of openSUSE on a mobile phone.

Vhck: This blog focuses on GNU/Linux, specifically openSUSE. The other day I saw pictures you shared of your Pinephone running openSUSE with Xfce. Had you already installed other GNU/Linux distributions on this device? Why did you choose openSUSE?

Adrián: I have been using a device compatible with Ubuntu Touch as my main phone for some time, and created some APPs that allow other users to change to Ubuntu Touch more easily. However, I didn’t consider trying to port another distribution until Pine64 announced the Pinephone.

The Pinephone may be the turning point that allows us to use the desired OS without dependence on proprietary drivers. I knew the Pinephone would be important as soon as I read the specifications, and saw how much could be done with it.

A port of openSUSE looked like an attractive alternative. openSUSE is widely supported in the community, and has great support from SUSE. Perhaps in the future, the Pinephone could become a mobile suited to business use, while maintaining the open source spirit.

Vhck: Can you go into the technical details? How did you manage to put together an image to be installed in this device?

Adrián: I’ve left the creation of an image ready to be done automatically. We now work with the base that openSUSE created for the Raspberry Pi, but modify the kernel and the U-Boot to work with the Pinephone. Finally, we have to port the packages that are not adapted for small screens.

Then you have to make the appropriate modifications to make calls, for the audio, for the accelerometer. Sometimes you have to create configurations and specific services on the system, and other times you need to make kernel patches.

I ported the package through OBS to make it functional in openSUSE. I had to use a server to recompile the kernel and enable support for the F2FS file system, which is not usually enabled in the default distributions and is necessary to mount the image and chroot the appropriate modifications.

Vhck: Is it difficult to install openSUSE on this device? Are there technical issues that will take longer to resolve?

Adrián: The Pinephone is the best mobile device for a Linux installation, as almost all the components are in the GNU/Linux mainline kernel.

The biggest setbacks came when adapting the interface for mobile use, as well as all the components that don’t usually exist in a PC, such as phone calls, SMS, GPS, etc. I’m still struggling to make these last components functional.

Vhck: Is a Pinephone with openSUSE fully functional?

Adrián: The Pinephone is not now fully functional with any distribution, and openSUSE is not an exception. However, I am working with a minimally functional system that allows me to use the Pinephone as a daily mobile device.

Vhck: Will the Pinephone accept the installation of any openSUSE software available from the repositories?

Adrián: You can install any software that exists in the repositories, but that doesn’t mean that everything will work. The vast majority should work, but the most functional will be those that can be adapted to a mobile screen.

Please bear in mind that we are using a mobile with four cores and two gigabytes of RAM, which will limit the use of some applications.

Vhck: How can we install the image you created on our own devices? Is it compatible with other devices?

Adrián: You can install it the same way you install it for a Raspberry Pi, with a simple dd of the image to an SD card or using some image writing software like Etcher. The images are currently being uploaded to a repository to be available for everyone.

The images I’m generating can only be used in the Pinephone, because an abstraction layer (Halium project) is necessary to support drivers from other platforms. I don’t now have a roadmap to port to other devices.

Vhck: As a KDE community Plasma user, I am personally interested in Plasma Mobile. Do you have any experience with this project?

Adrián: I have been testing several systems, including Plasma Mobile. I see lots of potential, but function is not as smooth as it should be with the load that the interface now carries. It may be an interesting interface to test in the future.

An advantage is that integration should be simple, as we only would have to port the existing package to openSUSE, then install it as we would on a computer.

Vhck: There may now be people who want to contribute their knowledge, time and dedication to this project. What knowledge is needed? How can we collaborate?

Adrián: Knowledge of systems and the desire to keep trying until you get what you want. If you want a functional GPS, you have to try to get it. Supports can also collaborate by publishing blog articles or by creating software. In the open source community, everyone is welcome.

Vhck: Have you contacted anyone from the openSUSE community who has been interested in your project?

Adrián: The project is still in the incubation phase, so I haven’t thought it appropriate to present it formally to the openSUSE community. That said, I do have friends in SUSE Spain who are aware of the project’s progress.

Vhck: Thank you very much for your time. The last word is yours; please say whatever you’d like in closing.

Adrián: First of all, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to present this project in your blog. Anyone who wants to collaborate or who has questions is free to contact me through social networks or by email. I hope that our work will advance a project that will interest many and be widely used.

This was my interview with Adrián. It was personally interesting for me, and I hope you have found it interesting as well, given the Pinephone’s potential.

I am glad to see emerging alternatives to Android, particularly based in GNU/Linux, and that hardware exists to support these alternatives. Perhaps you can do your part to make the project bigger and better.

Related links

• Adrián Campos Garrido’s Blog
• Adrián Campos Garrido’s Twitter
• Adrián Campos Garrido’s Linkedin
• Repository images openSUSE for Pinephone
• https://gitlab.com/slem.os
• Pinephone

É com muito entusiasmo que anuncio o lançamento do sistema operacional openSUSE Leap 15.2 Muitas novidades está presente nesta versão pois é uma grande atualização é baseada no SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP2. Novos aplicativos e tecnologias estão disponíveis como Inteligência Artificial (IA), Machine Learning (ML) e Deep Learning (DL).

Tensorflow, PyTorch, ONNX, e outras ferramentas de análises visuais interativas estão disponíveis nesta versão. Também estś disponível o kernel Linux em tempo real para microprocessadores (utilizados em eventos críticos). Kubernetes, CRI e Cilium, que garantem a implantação eficientes de aplicativos em contêiner.

Agora que sou responsável pela iniciativa openSUSE INNOVATORS, conseguirei proporcionar ao projeto soluções com mais agilidade. Pois todos os recursos que precisamos para as soluções inovadoras, já se encontra nativamente na distribuição openSUSE Leap 15.2.

Houve aprimoramento de instalações autônomas com o Autônomas com o AutoYast. Software atualizados Kernel 5.3.18, GCC 9, GNU Health 3.6.4 (com recurso de rastreabilidade pandêmica COVID-19). OnionShare 2.2, VLC 3.0.7, Syncthing 1.3.4 e outros.

OpenSUSE Leap 15.2 est disponible aujourd’hui en tant que distribution Linux construite à partir des mêmes sources que les sources SUSE Linux Enterprise 15. OpenSUSE Leap 15.2 ajoute un certain nombre de nouveaux packages, en particulier sur le front de l’apprentissage automatique et de l’intelligence artificielle. Tensorflow, PyTorch, ONNX et d’autres solutions AI / ML […]

I have recently bought a 14″ laptop, the HP Pavilion 14-ce0830nd. This is a mid-range laptop. It is an upgrade from my previous laptop, the ASUS VivoBook X402NA-FA112T. However, this machine is not without it flaws.

Design and hardware

The HP Pavilion 14-ce0830nd looks and feels like a quality laptop. The body around the keyboard is made of anodized metal and feels quite premium. Somewhat less premium is the plastic cover at the bottom and the plastic screen cover. A nice design touch are the hexagonal shapes in the laptop speaker grille that stretches all the way from left to right. It houses the B&O PLAY speakers. There is a very large trackpad at the bottom of the laptop. The touchpad has invisible integrated buttons (by clicking the whole touchpad on the left bottom or right bottom).

On the left side, this laptop features 2 USB 3.2 type A ports. It also features a headphone jack, an opening for a kensington lock and a SD card reader. On the right side, this laptop features a port for the power plug, an ethernet adapter, a HDMI port, a USB 3.2 type C port and a fingerprint sensor.

The display has an interesting hinge mechanism, that raises the laptop a couple of millimeters when you open it. This means that the keyboard has a slight slope. Which is more comfortable for typing. The disadvantage of this mechanism is that it blocks the hot-air vents on the backside.

The display itself is bright enough, but not extremely bright. The colors look good enough for me, but they are not stunning by any means. The viewing angles of the display are good.

The keyboard feels very good for typing. I could see myself writing entire essays on this laptop. I find it annoying that by default the multimedia keys are enabled instead of the function keys. When I try to access Krunner, I decrease the brightness of the screen instead. This is easily changed in the BIOS. HP calls them ‘action keys’ and you can disable them. I am less enthusiastic about the track-pad, which is by default way to sensitive for my taste. I made some adjustments in the KDE System Settings and now it works fine. It does have a good size. A disadvantage of that size is that the distance between the left bottom click and the right bottom click is too far apart.

The B&O PLAY speakers sound good, relative to other laptop speakers. Voices in songs are very clear. Pop music and Jazz music sound great. The speakers are not very loud. Like many other laptop speakers they fail to produce very crisp high tones (e.g. violins in classical music) and the bass doesn’t feel ‘heavy’ enough (in R&B music). But that is to be expected from laptop speakers.

The weight is just 1,59 kilogram, so its a light laptop. Which is good for portability. The laptop feels quite sturdy because of the metal housing. However, it has a plastic bottom plate which could break, if you access the internals too many times.

Specifications and benchmarks

The specifications:

• Intel Core i5-8250U
• Intel UHD Graphics 620 GPU
• Nvidia GeForce MX150 (2GB GDDR5)
• 8GB DDR4 SDRAM
• 256 GB M.2 SSD
• 1 TB 5400rpm HDD
• 14.0″ FullHD Edge-lit IPS display (1920×1080 pixels)
• 1 x LAN port
• 1 x HDMI  port
• 1 x Type C USB 3.2 port
• 2 x Type A USB 3.2 port
• 1 x SD card reader
• 1 x Microphone-in/Headphone-out jack
• Realtek RTL8821CE 8.02.11/b/g/n/ac WiFi and Bluetooth card
• HP Wide Vision HD-camera
• B&O PLAY speakers
• 3 cell 41-WHr lithium-ion battery

For benchmarks, I always look at the benchmark scores on the websites: cpubenchmark, videocardbenchmark and harddrivebenchmark. In the table below I compare the HP Pavilion 14-ce0830nd with my previous laptops: the ASUS VivoBook X402NA-FA112T and the Acer Aspire One 725. The HP Pavilion laptop has 3x more CPU/GPU power than the Asus Vivobook. And it has 10x more CPU power than the Acer Aspire One and 17x more GPU power. All-in-all a nice boost in available horsepower.

Comparison	HP Pavilion 14 ce0830nd	ASUS VivoBook X402NA	Acer Aspire One 725
Benchmark Score CPU	6139	2022	564
Benchmark Score dedicated GPU	2382	–	–
Benchmark Score integrated GPU	889	616	138
Benchmark Score SSD	9961	2712	–
Benchmark Score HDD	895	–	481
Combined storage size	1256 GB	128 GB	320 GB
Screen size	14″	14″	11,6″
Resolution	1920 x 1080	1920 x 1080	1366 x 768

Installing openSUSE Leap 15.2 Beta

I installed openSUSE Leap 15.2 Beta in March 2020, 3 months before the official release. The install went without issues. I have settled on the following disk layout:

• SSD 256 GB
  • 500 MB – EFI (boot partition)
  • 80 GB – BtrFS (root partition)
  • 9 GB – Swap (swap partition)
  • 16 GB – NTFS (Windows backup partition)
  • 149 GB – NTFS (Windows partition)
• HDD 1 TB
  • 1 TB – XFS (home partition)

I did encounter issues with hardware detection and drivers of the WiFi chipset and the videocard. I did succeed to resolve the WiFi issue. Unfortunately, I was not able to resolve the videocard issue.

WiFi issue

I knew from past experience that you can still encounter WiFi issues with cards that don’t have proper Linux support. The Realtek RTL8821CE is such a card. After installation, I discovered that I had no access to WiFi. Which makes the laptop a very expensive brick. Fortunately, this laptop has an Ethernet adapter, so I could plug it in on my local wired network.

I first tried installing a driver for the RTL8821CE, which was packaged for openSUSE. However, this failed to work. The second thing I tried, was to follow this guide on manually installing the driver from Github. But that also didn’t work. After multiple hours trying to problem-solve this issue, I was ready to spend my money on an easier solution. In the end, I bought 3 WiFi cards:

• Intel 3168NGW (PCI-Express)
• TP-Link Archer T3U (USB type A)
• TP-Link TL-WN823N (USB type A)

Replacing the internal Realtek card was fairly straightforward. After unscrewing a couple of screws, the bottom plate of the laptop can be removed. And the internal of the laptop are easy to reach. After replacing the Realtek card, the new Intel card produced a working WiFi signal. Which is great! However, the signal strength is low. And my WiFi reception is not great when I am indoors. So I wanted a better solution.

I initially purchased the TP-Link Archer T3U with the WiFi protocol ‘802.11 ac’. Which was a mistake. It uses the Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 card internally. Which (surprise surprise) is not supported on Linux. I tried to install the driver the easy way (packaged for openSUSE) and the hard way. Both ways didn’t succeed. Which meant that I had to purchase another USB WiFi dongle.

This time, I looked for a WiFi card that had Linux support out of the box. I purchased the TP-Link TL-WN823N card with the WiFi protocol ‘802.11 n’. And it works without any problems on openSUSE. So my suggestion for other Linux users with WiFi problems: purchase this (13 euro) USB WiFi dongle and save yourself hours of fiddling around with DKMS drivers that may or may not be working.

Nvidia videocard issue

The HP Pavilion 14 laptop is an optimus laptop, which means it features both integrated (Intel) graphics and dedicated (Nvidia) graphics cards. openSUSE Leap 15.2 doesn’t install the xf86-video-intel package by default. This is easily remedied by searching and installing this package via YaST and rebooting.

The Nvidia videocard wasn’t showing at all. When the proprietary Nvidia gfx-G04 / gfx-G05 drivers became available, I wanted to try to resolve this issue. I installed SUSE-prime to be able to switch between Intel and Nvidia graphics. SUSE-prime has a very easy to understand Wiki page. After installing the proprietary G05 drivers and SUSE-prime, the Nvidia card was still not showing. I tried the G04 drivers instead and replaced SUSE-prime with SUSE-prime-bbswitch. But I still wasn’t able to switch between the Nvidia and Intel GPUs. The G04 driver did appear to work better than the G05 drivers, because I was able to open the NVIDIA X Server application. Which presented me with an error dialog, informing me to run nvidia-xconfig as root.

When I followed the recommendation, an empty xorg.conf file was created. Which caused Xorg not to work at all after reboot. I had to remove this xorg.conf file to get my KDE desktop back up and running.

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

In the blog of another openSUSE user (Cubiclenate) I found that I was not alone in trying to resolve this issue. He linked me to the openSUSE Bumblebee Wiki page. These instructions looked very daunting, so I decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. I can play the same games on Windows (via Steam) where the Nvidia drivers are working.

Dual booting Windows

My reason for installing Windows 10 has nothing to do with the mentioned Nvidia issues. The reason to install Windows is to be able to transfer files between my computer and my Samsung Galaxy S phone and my Fitbit Versa watch.

I encountered problems in the past, trying to transfer pictures and music via Dolphin or via KDE Connect. I did manage to transfer a couple of files without a problem. But a mass download of all pictures from my Samsung phone to my computer was to much for Dolphin/KDE Connect to handle. And uploading a large collection of music from my computer to my Samsung phone was just as much of a problem.

This laptop originally shipped with Windows. I formatted both hard drives when installing openSUSE. I left some space on the SSD for a fresh Windows install. Windows 10 installed without any problems. When I restarted the computer, GRUB only showed the openSUSE entries, so I couldn’t boot into Windows 10. This issue was easy to resolve, I found the solution online.

In Dolphin I opened the Windows partition. Then I opened a terminal and entered:

sudo os-prober
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

GRUB directly found my Windows partition and added it as an option in the GRUB menu. After his, I was able to boot into Windows 10.

As many people have experienced before, Windows 10 is very hostile to your privacy. I already gained an advantage by doing a clean install. This way I didn’t have to deal with the unwanted crapware that HP installed by default on my system. Next, I disabled all spying options in the settings. Windows 10 was also automatically installing games like Bubble Witch 3 Saga and Candy Crush Friends. This apparently cannot be disabled. Microsoft, please stick to Mahjong, Minesweeper, Solitaire and Sudoku.

So what did I install? Mostly open source applications: Firefox, LibreOffice, GIMP, VLC media player, Elisa music player, ImageGlass, Notepad ++, openRA and SuperTuxKart. I also installed Steam (not open source) to play some games. And I installed the Fitbit app (also proprietary software) to communicate with my watch.

Gaming

I have installed OpenArena, Xonotic, SuperTuxKart and OpenRA on both openSUSE and Windows. I will use these open source games to compare gaming performance between openSUSE and Windows. The GeForce Experience app (which controls the Nvidia GPU) didn’t recognize these as games and thus everything runs on the Intel GPU. So this is a fair comparison.

Average FPS	openSUSE Leap 15.2	Windows 10
OpenArena (max settings)	45 FPS	90 FPS
Xonotic (ultra settings)	55 FPS	100 FPS
SuperTuxKart (max settings)	9 FPS	17 FPS
OpenRA – Red Alert (default settings)	60 FPS	60 FPS

I wasn’t expecting this difference in gaming performance. The average frame-rates are almost twice as good on the Windows side. Apparently the Intel GPU drivers on the Windows side are better optimized.

The GeForce Experience app did recognize the games that I installed via Steam on Windows: Tomb Raider, DiRT Rally and GRID autosport. These 3 proprietary games are used to see how well the Nvidia GPU is handling them.

Average FPS	Ultra settings	Low settings
Tomb Raider	40 FPS	60 FPS
DiRT Rally	30 FPS	54 FPS
GRID autosport	16 FPS	60 FPS

Not surprisingly, the frame rates on Ultra settings are not great. However, these games are very playable on full HD resolution on medium/low settings.

Multitasking

The HP Pavilion 14-ce0830nd handles multitasking like a boss. It has no problem handling multiple tasks at the same time. For fun, I tried opening Firefox, Dolphin, Gwenview, Darktable and LibreOffice Writer, while playing music in Elisa music player at the same time. The image below shows the result. The applications started almost instantly. None of the CPU cores reached 100% and most of them stayed below 50%. The 8GB of memory was plenty to handle all of these tasks.

Conclusion

Would I recommend the HP Pavilion 14-ce0830nd? To be honest, its a mixed bag on openSUSE. Installation of openSUSE Leap 15.2 was very easy. And installation of a dual boot system with Windows 10 was easy as well. The laptop has an attractive look and feel. The display, speakers, keyboard and external ports are all good. The touchpad is too sensitive, but this can be adjusted in the KDE settings. The machine has enough RAM, enough storage and the hard drives are performant. The Intel CPU/GPU is great. Which means that this is a great machine for multitasking. The gaming performance on the Intel GPU on openSUSE Leap 15.2 is good enough to play various open source games on medium/high settings.

There are 2 big issues why I wouldn’t recommend this machine:

• the Realtek WiFi card is not supported under Linux
• the Nvidia GPU is not working in openSUSE Leap 15.2

I feel that if you are looking for a good Linux laptop, it should come with an Intel WiFi/Bluetooth chip. And that it is better to avoid laptops with Nvidia optimus videocards.

So is this laptop a disappointment? Not at all. After a bit of tinkering, I am quite happy with it. I replaced the internal WiFi card and use a 13 euro USB WiFi dongle if I need an even better signal. I don’t mind that the Nvidia GPU is not working on the openSUSE side. This machine offers a big performance upgrade in comparison to my previous laptop. I enjoy the better display, speakers and the great keyboard. I have a Logitech wireless mouse plugged in, so I don’t have to use the track-pad exclusively. The battery is also better than my previous laptop. For me, these are enough reasons to happily keep running openSUSE Leap on this laptop.

Published on: 2 July 2020

Hoy os traigo una delicatessen. Se trata de un vídeo en el que Ramón Mirando nos muestra la potencia de la aplicación estrella en cuanto a pintura digital de la Comunidad KDE. Bienvenidos a pintando con Krita el «Tajo de Ronda», una maravilla arquitectónica que muchos desconocemos pero que con el arte de Ramón y el poder del Software Libre lo podemos disfrutar en nuestra casa mientras organizamos un viaje para admirarlo con todos nuestros sentidos.

Pintando con Krita: «Tajo de Ronda»

Lo he encontrado en LinkedIn y no he podido resistirme a compartirlo con todos vosotros. Ramón Miranda, al cual tuve el gusto de conocer en la Akademy y Akademy-es de 2013 de Bilbao, ha realizado otro vídeo-demostración del poder de Krita.

En sus propias palabras:

«He creado este vídeo para el equipo de #Krita en su canal de Youtube. Espero que guste y sobre todo que sirva para que se vea la belleza de #Ronda y cómo el software Krita nos puede ayudar de manera sencilla a crear este tipo de #paisajes. Tenemos increíbles parajes en nuestro país. Un saludo desde el mundo de la #pinturadigital.»

El vídeo tiene subtítulos en inglés para la gente con discapacidad auditiva y está separado en partes ya que los tiempos están en la descripción de Youtube. No obstante, para el que solo quiera ver el vídeo y alucinar un poco lo pongo abajo.

¿Qué es Krita?

Para los que no lo sepan, Krita es el software de pintura digital e ilustración basado en las librerías de la plataforma KDE que antes estaba incluido en Calligra Suite.

A diferencia de otras aplicaciones gráficas, se diseño hace énfasis en la creación de imágenes desde cero, es decir, está especialmente orientado para los artistas gráficos como ilustradores, dibujantes de cómics, etc.
Krita es software libre distribuido bajo la licencia GNU GPL y fue lanzado por primera vez como parte de la versión 1.4.0 de KOffice, el 21 de junio de 2005. (Vía: Wikipedia)

Para ver el funcionamiento de esta aplicación nada mejor que ver un vídeo de Odysseas Stamoglou en la que nos muestra como dibujar una chica futurística con Krita.

Ya está disponible para descargar e instalar openSUSE Leap 15.2

Según lo previsto, hoy mismo se publica openSUSE Leap 15.2 la tercera actualización menor o “service pack” de la serie 15 de la distribución de GNU/Linux openSUSE Leap.

Con esta tercera actualización menor de openSUSE Leap 15, se actualizan algunos paquetes de software, se corrigen errores y se parchean vulnerabilidades encontradas, para seguir disfrutando de una distribución de GNU/Linux mantenida por la comunidad, estable, robusta y sencilla de uso.

openSUSE Leap está pensada tanto para pequeños servidores, como para equipos personales. Hace sencillo el uso de GNU/Linux en nuestros equipos gracias al centro de control, YaST con el que podremos gestionar nuestro sistema, para que solo nos preocupemos de trabajar y disfrutar de nuestro equipo.

La herramienta propia de YaST cada vez está siendo mejorada, tanto como el proceso de instalación como los distintos módulos de control de las diferentes partes de nuestro sistema (repositorios, hardware, configuraciones de cortafuegos, etc)

Ya sea para un entorno profesional, de desarrollo o para un uso doméstico a la hora de utilizar nuestros equipos, openSUSE es una alternativa de sistema operativo libre y abierto frente a otras opciones privativas y cerradas.

Olvídate de “serials” de versiones “desatendidas” e inseguras. Instala un sistema operativo basado en GNU/Linux libre, comunitario, profesional, con un montón de software probado y seguro a un clic de distancia para ser instalado desde sus repositorios propios.

openSUSE Leap 15.2 te permite seguir disfrutando durante otro año de un sistema operativo puesto al día, robusto y bien mantenido. Sin sobresaltos y fiables.

En cuanto al Kernel Linux Leap 15.2 ofrece la versión 5.3. El compilador GCC está disponible desde la versión 7 a la 9.

En cuanto a entornos de escritorio, openSUSE Leap 15.2 continua con la versión de largo soporte LTS de Plasma 5.18 de la comunidad KDE.

GNOME se ha actualizado a la versión 3.34 desde la versión 3.26 que había en Leap 15.1. Y Xfce está en la versión 4.14

openSUSE Leap 15.2 es la tercera actualización menor de openSUSE Leap 15, lo que le da a esta versión más de 3 años de soporte oficial.

Si ya está disfrutando de openSUSE Leap 15.1, tienes 6 meses para migrar de manera sencilla a la versión 15.2 para seguir disfrutando de un sistema actualizado.

Tienes más información de las novedades incluidas en Leap 15.2 en sus notas de lanzamiento, y puedes descargar las diferentes ISO para escoger la que prefieras desde sus sección de descargas.

Descarga, instala o actualiza y disfruta de openSUSE Leap 15.2. El sistema operativo que hace que el uso de GNU/Linux sea sencillo.

Enlaces de interés

• https://es.opensuse.org/Anuncio_publicaci%C3%B3n_15.2
• https://www.opensuse.org/#Leap
• https://victorhckinthefreeworld.com/actualizar-opensuse-leap-42-1-a-leap-42-2/ (proceso similar para 15.1)