Installing openSUSE Linux 12.1-GNOME

[waterhead]

I have installed openSUSE 12.1-Gnome (Linux) on my tablet (AzpenX1). It is similar enough to the Viewpad 10 that you can install it on that tablet too. There are a few post-installation tweaks that I will cover here. I chose Linux over Android because it has better printer support and a complete office suite (LibreOffice). I Chose openSUSE-Gnome over other Linux distros because it seemed better suited for touchscreen use.

INSTALLATION

1. Download the openSUSE Live GNOME CD image:
software.opensuse.org: Download openSUSE 12.1

You can burn the image to a CD, or use it to make a bootable USB pen drive. Instructions on how to do this can be found here:

How to make bootable openSUSE CD

How to make bootable openSUSE USB Stick

2. You will need a keyboard/mouse for installation. A wireless keyboard/mouse combo works great. A small USB hub may be needed to, to provide more USB ports. I purchased a cheap one made by Belkin:

http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?&Product_Id=608514&subid=367680

Boot the CD or USB stick and select the first option "openSUSE Live GNOME". This is the default selection and will start automatically after a short time. You can also choose the "Installation" option to go straight to the install process.

3. After the live CD loads, you can play around with openSUSE before installing anything. When ready to install click on the "Live Installer" icon in the upper left corner.

4. You can accept the default partitioning arrangements, just be sure that you are installing to the correct drive or partition. Click the "Edit Partition Setup" button to change any of the settings.

5. After entering the user info, it will come to an "Installation Settings" screen. Here is where you can change more of the install settings. You can change where it installs the GRUB bootloader, by clicking the "Booting" section. You can also then add booting of other operating systems here.

(Note: Since I am not installing at this time, I cannot give details on this)

6. After installation, you will reboot and remove the installation media (CD or USB). If you installed GRUB to a drive other that the main, you may need to select the boot device during the tablet startup. On my tablet hitting the F11 key will give me my boot options.

 

[waterhead]

POST INSTALLATION

The touchscreen should work out-of-the-box.

One of the first things that will want to do is activate the onscreen keyboard. In the upper tray, touch the "Universal Access Settings" icon. It is the human figure (or star) in a circle. Then turn on the Screen Keyboard option. You can then bring up the keyboard by first touching the lower-right corner of the screen, then touch the keyboard icon. You can retract the keyboard by touching the keyboard key, lower right next to the "tr..." key.

I know the keyboard keys are a bit small, and the keyboard covers part of the screen. I hope a hack can be found to fix this.

 

[waterhead]

WIRELESS PERMISSIONS FIX

Thanks to Mike Massonnet for this fix:
m8t's blog: Changing PolicyKit settings per user

You can connect to wireless networks by tapping on the network icon in the system tray, next to the battery icon. But, it always asks for the Administrative (root) password the first time you connect to a new access point. I found that the onscreen keyboard does not work for entering the Administrative password. This may be OK when at home, but not for outside of the home. The fix for that is to create a new PolicyKit setting.

Open a text editor, with root permissions. To do this open a terminal window: Activities-->Applications-->System Tools-->Xterm. Then enter this command:

gnomesu gedit

Create this document:

[Let user paul modify system settings for network]
Identity=unix-user:paul
Action=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.settings.modify.system
ResultAny=no
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=yes

Change the user to your username, and save as 10-network-manager.pkla. There seems to be differences in opinion where to save it, so I saved it in both places:

/var/lib/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/10-network-manager.pkla

/etc/polkit-1/localauthority.conf.d/50-local.d/10-network-manager.pkla

 

[waterhead]

SCREEN ROTATION

I have already covered this in another thread:

http://www.androidtablets.net/forum/viewpad-10/33309-rotating-screen-touchpad-linux.html

I would like to have this done automatically, as these tablets have an accelerometer that I believe senses the tablet position. But I have been unable to find it in the list of hardware that openSUSE sees. Maybe it is a driver issue, but help would be appreciated in this area.

That thread also covers how to add shortcut/icons to the desktop. I find that in a touchscreen tablet this is a necessity.

Edit: Auto screen rotating works!! See above linked thread for details.

 

[waterhead]

ADDING "FLICK" GESTURE TO FIREFOX

There is an addon for Firefox that enables the "Flick" touchscreen gesture. Install the Grab and Drag addon:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/grab-and-drag/

Open the preferences and make sure that "Flick Gestures Enabled" is checked.

 

[serouja]

is it possible to install openSuse on 8gb micro sd card? if yes what should be the partitioning schema?

thanks

 

[waterhead]

is it possible to install openSuse on 8gb micro sd card? if yes what should be the partitioning schema?

thanks

Yes, openSUSE, and Linux in general, runs just fine from a SD card. According to the Installation Guide, you only need 3GB. My installation is currently more than 8 GB, but I have spreadsheets and things too.

For partitioning, you don't need anything special. One large ext3 partition mounted under "/" is ok, you don't need a separate partition for "/home" or "/boot". You can make a small swap partition too, but if you already have one on the main hard drive (for Android) you can tell it to use that one. Swap is what Windows calls virtual memory, and 1 1/2 times actual memory is a good size. If pressed for room, and you have 2 GB of memory, you can safely install without a swap partition.

Follow this guide for more info:

Start-Up

 

[waterhead]

serouja:

I have had problems with my tablet when I tried to install to the microSD card, from a USB drive. When booted, the tablet recognizes the USB drive before the microSD card. This makes the USB drive the second drive, and the microSD card the third drive. After you remove the USB drive, the microSD card then becomes the second drive. The GRUB bootloader is looking to boot from the third drive, but it can't find it!

You can edit configuration files to fix this (after installation), but it is better to install from a CD, using a USB CD drive.

 

[gregrice]

Hi!

I was wondering about change the old fashioned grub to something new and shiny, like Burg.
Only problem is that i - and maybe most of the vpad10 users - have win7 with android x86,
which makes it a little hard.
As i know android x86 it's doesn't have dpkg or grub command line installed, also the grub directory
is outside of the android root, which is a folder :S

Does anybody have an idea how could i replace grub with burg?
Maybe chrooting somehow to the sda1 of the tablet from a liveUSB and use the linux package manager?

Sorry about posting it here, but i didn't wanted to open a new thread until i'm not sure it's going to work!

Greg

 

[waterhead]

I never heard of burg, and I don't think any Linux distro uses it. Linux and Android-x86 use grub. MeeGo uses extlinux.

What exactly is it you want to do with the bootloader? It is only meant to boot systems.

 

[gregrice]

Burg is a bootloader based on Grub, but with more customizable interface (themes, icons, etc).

Here is one of the screenshots:

It would be better to have this on boot, instead of the good'ol grub, isn't it?!

GFXBoot is a graphical boot interface from openSuse, but not that nice as the Burg.

Screenshot:

I'm still curious about how we could manage to install one of these bootloaders,
since the Android doesn't seems to have commands like dpkg, make or even grub :S
Chrooting could be the solution i think, but if i google it only displays results for chrooting from android,
not to android
Later this weekend i will have time and will try it somehow!

 

[waterhead]

I suggest starting a new thread for that. Let's keep this one for basic installing and setup.