Font Smoothing in openSUSE

I have heard people commenting on how "ugly" openSUSE looks compared to the smoothness of Ubuntu. It's all relative one may argue, but having a pleasant UI matters to us who stare at the screen for long periods of time.

OOTB openSUSE doesn't do font smoothing or subpixel hinting due to freetype2's subpixel hinting implementation may infringe Microsoft's ClearType patents. This is why it is disabled both upstream (by the freetype2 authors) and in the freetype2 RPM packages that ship with openSUSE.

To solve this, we need to replace the default freetype2 RPM with a copy from the OBS.

Navigate to http://opensuse-community.org/SubpixelHinting

Follow the instructions to either do it from the CLI or 1-Click install.

openSUSE users may also click on this link to execute the YMP (YaST Meta Package) to kickstart the process.

Installing Ubuntu Fonts in openSUSE 11.4

Although I do not use Ubuntu and its derivatives extensively in my daily computing, the short sojourn I had with Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) impressed upon me the Ubuntu font.

While openSUSE 11.4 has a large amount of font types to choose from, I still find that the Ubuntu font is pretty awesome; I especially like it on my HP Mini 2140 netbook running openSUSE 11.4.

To install the Ubuntu font type on openSUSE 11.4 :

1. Download the latest Ubuntu font type from http://font.ubuntu.com/
2. Unzip the zip archive - unzip ubuntu-font-family-0.71.2.zip
3. Move the unzipped directory to /usr/share/fonts - mv ubuntu-font-family-0.71.2/ /usr/share/fonts
4. Run SuSEconfig and you are good to go.
   
   

Note that the font archive version may differ from the above example.

Banshee 2.0 is out!

Banshee is an open source media player that is based on Gtk# and Mono and uses the Gstreamer framework for multimedia file playback. It can also be used for managing podcasts and listening to online radio.

The new 2.0 version introduces a Windows build.

Go get it at http://banshee.fm/download/

Banshee is a project sponsored by Novell SUSE.

LibreOffice on openSUSE 11.3

To get the LibreOffice goodness in openSUSE 11.3, just add the following repo:

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/LibreOffice:/Stable/openSUSE_11.3/

There are also versions for openSUSE 11.2 and 11.4. Just change the end part to the desired version number.

Installing KDE 4.6 in openSUSE 11.3

Just add the following repos into openSUSE 11.3 to get KDE 4.6 goodness:

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Release:/46/openSUSE_11.3/
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Extra/KDE_Release_46_openSUSE_11.3/

LibreOffice is released

Yay LibreOffice is released...

Go get it at http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

openSUSE FUD

I am really sick and tired of people spreading FUD on the future of openSUSE and SUSE Linux in light of the Attachmate/Novell merger.

Point One - Attachmate is not Oracle and openSUSE is not OpenSolaris.
Point Two - Jeff Hawn, CEO of Attachmate has already said that SUSE and openSUSE are important components of the merger and will remain.
Point Three - Goto Point One

Novell has contributed much to the FOSS universe (think OpenOffice.org, Banshee, Mono, GNOME, KDE, Linux Kernel, Moonlight etc) and on behalf of the community, bore the brunt of the SCO assault on Linux and later on UNIX. Funny some trolls just conveniently forgot that Novell literally squashed the baseless SCO litigation and scored one for the good guys.

People will always say what they want and there will always be trolls. Get your facts right before you speak mate. You obviously have an axe to grind or something. We work hard to make openSUSE successful and hey by all means help us out if you think you can do a better job than us; we'll be glad to have you on board. Otherwise just STFU.

Sniping on the side and lying and spreading your poison around is just sad and counter-productive. What do you hope to achieve? Is it another case of my distro will bitch-slap your distro? Get real and grow up or get laid, watch some pr0n or whichever pleases you mate.

If you have a commercial motive behind your poison, well that only means whatever you are dealing is just crap.

I am an openSUSE guy and as much as I love the Geeko, I have long realised that it's part of the FOSS Universe. I am just as happy to see BSD, Ubuntu or Fedora successful. Deep down I really don't give a damn about distros. I am more interested in seeing FOSS make it.

So if you think that FOSS is all about how awesome <$DISTRO_NAME> is, then you are sadly mistaken. In the mean time if you need to comment on things you are not sure of, show some humility and respect, otherwise just STFU. You don't have the right to insult and belittle the efforts of others.