Dartmouth is out, Grab it now !

 We had sneak peeks at Dartmouth earlier here ( 1, 2, 3, 4) and it is out now and unlike Mantis did not face any hiccups in the development life cycle. I generally prefer to install any openSUSE version using Live ISOs rather than DVD as they seem to install faster than DVDs, but they do have a downside as they cannot be used for upgrading from older to newer version of the distro.This article is about preparing the ISO image, installing 12.3, things to do before installation and 30+ list of things to do after installing openSUSE 12.3 / GNOME 3.6.2.

How to prepare an ISO?

 I downloaded the openSUSE 12.3 GNOME live ISO which is available through download page. I usually download my ISOs through torrent as it is:-

• Much faster compared to direct downloads.
• More reliable as after downloading them i can "verify" or hash check the downloaded file to ensure the integrity of the ISO.
• Allows me to stop and resume downloads.

 I burned / wrote it onto a flash drive using SUSE Studio Image writer. For those trying to burn 12.3 Live ISOs onto CDs there is bad news. The new Live ISOs don't fit on a CD and size of ISO is nearly a GB. For example the 64 bit version of GNOME is of size (890 MB). They can be written onto DVDs though.

Why a fresh install is better?

I usually prefer a fresh install instead of upgrade because:-

• There is always a danger of incompatible libraries between old versions and newer versions on GNOME as well as openSUSE 
• Sometimes there are even architectural changes between various of release like usr merge and systemd etc..

What are the things to do before installation?

Verify downloaded media

 We need to verify the downloaded ISO image using the md5sum command and compare the output from terminal to that of the md5 files obtained from download page. Running the following command should give you an output like  "29725b..." which you can check against the content inside md5 files.

md5sum openSUSE-12.3-GNOME-Live-x86_64.iso

Read Release Notes

 We obviously need to read through the release notes before starting any installation. Some important pointers are:-

• There would be "No Network after Installation". You may need to reboot the machine once manually. Yeah this is a real downer :-(
•  Since 12.3 uses systemd you need to use commands like "sudo systemctl restart network.service" instead of "sudo /etc/init.d/network restart". An example is given here.
• Systemd: Cleaning Directories (/tmp and /var/tmp). By default, systemd cleans tmp directories daily as configured in /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf. Users can change it by copying /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf to /etc/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf and modifying the copied file. It will override /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf.

Backup data and settings

The following are the things to backup before proceeding with new installation.

• You obviously need to backup all your data files like videos, mp3s, text files, pdfs etc:
• You may also want to backup settings of the applications you have used before so that you need not loose any data and re-customize the applications on your new installation. To access your old application settings you should open nautilus (assuming you are using previous versions of GNOME) and then press "ctrl+h" and then navigate to your home directory. Some of the directories i would back up would be:-
• Notes from tomboy which are available in directory ~/.local/share/tomboy.
• Old stats folder for gkrellm available in directory  ~/.gkrellm2.
• Old bookmarks and browser (Firefox, Seamonkey) related settings which are present in ~/.mozilla.
• You can backup your thunderbird mails which are available from ~/.thunderbird
• Although not recommended you can also backup installed gnome shell extensions and migrate them to new desktop. The extension files are located in  ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
• You may migrate your old themes from  ~/.themes
• You can migrate the custom application menus you created using alacrate from here  ~/.local/share/application.
•  If you  use FreeRapid then you may want to backup the settings folder so that you can retain history of your downloads. The settings folders are ~/.FRD.

Note:- ~ means /home/<profileName> i.e. /home/<profileName>/.FRD is the same as ~/.FRD.

Installation:-

 As usual openSUSE installation is pretty straight forward and what i am describing here applies to installation from a Live ISO. You need to plugin the USB into your system and while booting press F10 or whatever function key which allows you to get the "boot from media" menu. Here we need to choose the USB device.

• I would recommend booting into the LIVE session first and test a few things  by opening some applications, testing sound etc to ensure that the installation media is good.
• Then we can reboot and choose the "installation" menu to start the installation.
• In the first screen you can choose the right keyboard layout and Locale / Language settings.
• Then you can choose the place you live on the world map to set the time / timezone right. You may opt to disable the setting "Set Hardware clock to UTC...". This will cause issues if you dual boot with another OS. The other OS would always show UTC / GMT time.
• In the next screen YaST would offer you the best installation and partition setup based on your system configuration. You may choose to import your existing partition setup or even use the "Expert" option to do custom partitioning.
• In the next screen you can create a "user" and set the password for that user. You will also notice that this password would also be your root or admin user password.
• After you confirm the settings, the installation will begin and after a few minutes the installer will ask you to reboot and upon rebooting an automated configuration process takes over and does some magic and finally your will be logged into the DE which you have opted to install.

Things to do after installing openSUSE 12.3 / GNOME 3.6.2

Steps to open terminal:-

 In terminal you can easily run various commands to install various software. During installation you will need to provide the admin password that you have entered during installation. You can open command launcher (Alt+F2) and then use the command ("gnome-terminal") to open a GNOME terminal.

Steps to refresh desktop:-

 To refresh the GNOME desktop you press "Alt+F2" which opens the command launcher and use the command "r" and hit return or enter key. This will refresh / restart your GNOME 3.X desktop.

Notes about Zypper:-

sudo - It is a command used to elevate permission to "root" user level

zypper :- zypper is a package manager used in openSUSE . You may also read about Understanding "Package Management" in Linux

in :- this option is used to instruct zypper to install the packages following the option.

You can check Man for zypper or take a look here for more details.

01.)Configure Community repositories

 Setting up of the "Community repositories" is the first step in setting up our system. You can take a look at this article to configure the repos.

02.)Check For Updates

 To check for updates you can open the terminal and use the command "sudo zypper up" to check for available updates. You will be surprised about the number of updates that are waiting to get installed.

03.)Improve multimedia experience

 openSUSE installation doesn't provide codecs for any of the restricted multimedia formats like mp3. There is a famous "1 click Install" procedure to overcome this predicament here. The recommended one-click for gnome desktop is named "codecs-gnome.ymp". Once you click on the installer, you need to be ready with your mouse and click on "Agree / I trust" buttons that appears endlessly one after the other. Finally, we need to refresh the desktop.

04.)Install your backed up application profiles

 You can opt to move all the application profiles which you have backed up to respective folders on your new installation. Sometimes we may need to change ownership of these files and folders if you see an "X" marked on the file or folder icon in Nautilus. To do this we open a terminal and then we can apply the "change ownership" command on all folders and subfolders by running the command "sudo chown -R <profileName> /home/<profileName>/" in the terminal.

05.)Install Banshee

  The default audio jukebox on openSUSE 12.3 is Rhythmbox. But if you need Banshee then you can open the terminal and run the command. "sudo zypper in banshee  banshee-extensions-default". It integrates well with Media Player  Indicator which is a Gnome Shell Extension. The extension allows you to control playback, volume and also preview cover art of the track that is playing.

06.)Install Mp3 support

 If you don't have mp3 support even after using the above one click in step3 and you get an error that you need "Advanced Streaming Format (ASF) demuxer", then you need to install mp3 codec by running the command "sudo zypper in gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3" in the terminal.

07.)Install Video player

 The default video player Totem is pretty good but not good enough. It is better to go in for a "mplayer" based media player so that most of the media formats are supported. You should consider using mplayer2 backend which claims to be better than standard mplayer backend. We can open terminal and run the following commands to install various video players.

Install gnome-mplayer

sudo zypper in gnome-mplayer mplayer2-as-mplayer (or) sudo zypper in gnome-mplayer

Install smplayer

sudo zypper in smplayer2 mplayer2 (or) sudo zypper in smplayer

Install umplayer

sudo zypper in umplayer mplayer2-as-umplayer (or) sudo zypper in umplayer

08.)Install Note Making application

 If you need to use stickies or note making application then we need to install Tomboy. To install tomboy you open gnome terminal and run the command "sudo zypper in tomboy" to install Tomboy. Once you open the application it will automatically detect the old notes from your old profile which you have migrated to "~/.local/share/tomboy".

09.)Install GKrellM

 By installing GKrellM you can get various stats like internet, CPU usage etc. To install GKrellM you can run the command "sudo zypper in gkrellm" in terminal. You can see your old internet usage stats if you had migrated your old stats to "~/.gkrellm2".

10.)Install offline dictionary

  Artha is a cool offline dictionary which has many advanced features and is very useful in day to day life. You can run the command "sudo zypper in artha" in terminal. You can access artha once it is started through the key combination "ctrl+alt+w".

11.)Install favourite web browser

 openSUSE 12.3 / GNOME 3.6 comes with Firefox as default browser. For installing any other browser you can run the following commands in terminal.

GUI based browsers

To install SeaMonkey (Web-browser, advanced e-mail, newsgroup and feed client, IRC chat, and HTML editing made simple—all your Internet needs in one application.) use "sudo zypper in seamonkey"

 To install Opera (really fast browser with inbuilt email client, torrent client and a irc chat client ) use "sudo zypper in opera-gtk"

 To install Chromium (open-source clone of infamous google chrome) use "sudo zypper in chromium"

 To install Epiphany (default browser for GNOME desktop) execute the command "sudo zypper in epiphany"

 To install midori (light weight webkit based browser) use "sudo zypper in midori"

Text based browsers

 Unlike browsers which support javascript, flash and other plugins  text browsers are as the name suggests can only render the text from any webpage. Many major sites do support text browsing. 

To install Links  use the command "sudo zypper in links"

To install Lynx  use the command "sudo zypper in lynx"

To install w3m use the command "sudo zypper in w3m"

12.)Install Bleachbit

 Bleachbit is essentially a clean up tool for your Linux desktop. According to the Bleachbit website it identifies and erases broken menu entries, cache, cookies, localizations, recent document lists, and temporary files in Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Bash, and 50 other applications. It is your Linux equivalent of ccleaner in windows. You can install Bleachbit in terminal using the command "sudo zypper in bleachbit".

13.)Install Image editor

  12.3 comes with GIMP pre-installed but, If you want a light-weight, basic image editor then you can go in for Pinta. Pinta is the Linux equivalent of Paint.NET on windows. To install Pinta you can execute the command "sudo zypper in pinta" in terminal

14.)Install Sun Java JDK / JRE / browser plugin

 openSUSE comes bundled with a community version of Java called openJDK and a browser plugin called icedtea-web. This should be good enough for most of the users but if you do need Oracle/Sun java then read on.

 Due to some licensing issues, Oracle (Sun) Java/ JRE could not be distributed through the official repositories of openSUSE, since openSUSE 12.1.

 You need JDK if you want to develop something using JAVA. If you just want to run some jars and some applets in the browser like Firefox then you need to install JRE and JAVA Plugin. Here is a official quick guide to install the newest and secure version of Java. For people who just want the software and averse to long installation procedures i would suggest installing them from user maintained repositories. openSUSE don't guarantee any stuff downloaded from user maintained repositories. I usually install Java from user maintained repositories and they work just fine. Before installing Oracle JRE you should remove openJDK by executing the following command in terminal.

sudo zypper rm -u java-1_7_0-openjdk icedtea-web

You can find "1 Click Install" links  for JRE 1.6 here. You can get JRE 1.7 here.

Similarly you can get JDK 1.6 here. You can get JDK 1.7 here. 

15.)Install GNOME Shell Extensions / Remove Annoying "Universal Access"

 According to GNOME site GNOME Shell extensions are small pieces of code written by third party developers that modify the way GNOME works. If you are familiar with Firefox Addons or Chrome Extensions , GNOME Shell extensions are similar to them. You can take a look at a few of the extensions in this post.

16.)Install Acrobat reader

 Evince is the default pdf document viewer for the GNOME desktop. It is already installed on openSUSE 12.2. For day to day purposes, Evince is good enough. But it is not rich in features like Acrobat reader. To install Acrobat Reader use the command "sudo zypper in acroread" in terminal.

17.)Enable desktop icons

 To enable desktop icons we need to make nautilus as desktop manager instead of gnome shell. To do this we should open the command launcher (Alt+F2) and use the command "gnome-tweak-tool" and open Advanced Settings tool. Here we can select "Desktop" in the navigation tree on the left and then turn ON nautilus as the desktop manager. You can optionally turn ON other options like "Computer Icon", "Home Icon", "Network Icon", "Trash Icon" etc...

18.)Enable location bar in Nautilus

 One can enable location bar instead of path bar in nautilus. The advantages of using location bar are that you can always see the full path of the folder you are in and also copy paste the same if required. we should open the command launcher (Alt+F2) and type in "gnome-tweak-tool" and hit return key. You can then select "Files" in the navigation tree on the left and then turn "ON" the required option as shown below.

19.)Enable minimize maximize and close buttons in all applications

 One can easily enable minimize maximize and close buttons in all application windows in GNOME Shell. To do this we must open the command launcher (Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-tweak-tool" and hit return key. You can select "Shell" in the navigation tree on the left and then select the required option which is "All" in menu "Arrangement of buttons on the title bar" as shown below. One can also enable other cool options like date in calendar which gets displayed in top panel, configure shutdown options etc.

20.)Customize the Dash menu

 The Dash menu is the menu bar which appear on the left hand side of the screen if you press the left windows key on your keyboard. You can easily Add and remove items, rearrange items in the DASH. A detailed post about customizing the DASH is available here

21.)Add programs to start up

 You can easily Add and Remove items to start up of your GNOME session. Open the command launcher (Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-session-properties" and hit the return key. In this window you can click the "add" button on the right hand side of the window which will in turn open up a new window where you can type in the command that will launch the relevant applications when the system starts up. I would typically add the following applications to the startup of my GNOME based system:-

• Network Monitoring Tool(GKrellM)
• Offline Dictionary(Artha)
• Note Making Application(Tomboy)

Adding items to GNOME session startup

22.)Change Themes

 Dark theme lovers can start rejoicing as "Adwaita" supports dark themes now. Dark theme support can be turned ON using the relevant slider as shown below in "gnome-tweak-tool".

23.)Change default applications

 If you need to change default applications on your desktop e.g.You want to make Opera default browser instead of Firefox then you should Open the command launcher (Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-control-center" and hit the return key. This will open "Settings" where you can locate an application/applet by name "Details" under "System" category. Open "Details" and navigate to "Default Applications" on the tree like menu on the left hand side of the application. Here you can change the default applications of your system.

24.)Force applications to appear in openwith list

 If you want some rogue applications to appear in nautilus file "open with" list (Or) when you right click on a file then you essentially need to edit the launcher in GNOME 3 applications using Alacarte(menu editor) and add a %U after the command. For detailed explanation take a look at this post.

25.)Install archive manager

 Even though openSUSE 12.3 comes with a good archive manager in the form of File Roller we usually require archive mangers that have advanced functions

• Splitting the file into multiple parts and rejoin the split file
• Handle multiple file formats(7zip, xz, bzip2, gzip, zip, tar)
• Create self extracting executables
• Encrypt archived files
• Test archived files
• Accessible through right click in Nautilus

  J7Z is one such cool archive manager which satisfies all the above requirements and more. It has built in themes / skins too. To install J7Z we can run the command "sudo zypper in j7z" and then press return or enter key in a terminal.

26.)Install clipboard manager

 For power users who miss the GNOME 2.X clipboard applet which was sitting prettily on the panel and wish you had similar application on your GNOME 3.X desktop then Glipper or Parcellite comes to your rescue. To install Glipper run the command "sudo zypper in glipper" in terminal. To install Parcellite use the command "sudo zypper in parcellite" in terminal. Parcellite and Glibber automatically adds itself to the start up list and will start automatically when you boot GNOME, next time.

27.)Enable icons in buttons and Menus

To do this you can take a look at this post (GNOME Shell Context Menu Appearing Plain without Icons)

28.)Make things easy using Nautilus Actions

 Actions is useful in adding custom menu items to the right click menu and execute arbitrary commands. It provides a way to automate many day to day tasks like image conversion, opening Nautilus in admin mode etc.Why should we use Nautilus Actions?

29.)Change right click options on files

 This is about setting a list of open with applications and setting default applications for any file. For more information you can take a look at Changing right click options for files on GNOME 3.X desktop.

30.)Creating custom keyboard shortcuts

 You can use the "keyboard settings" tool under Activities(Alt+F1) and create custom keyboard shortcuts to run scripts,execute jars etc.. For more details you can take a look at Custom Keyboard Shortcuts on GNOME 3.x desktop

31.)Create custom menus or application shortcuts in GNOME

 In order to create a new menu in the Accessibility dropdown or add your own application launcher to the panel you can take a look at Adding custom menus or application shortcuts to GNOME 3.X panel

32.)Force some programs to appear in openwith menu

 You can follow the method described in step 29 or check out editing of launcher using alacarte in Force programs to appear in open with list on GNOME 3.x desktop

33.)Read through GNOME Cheat Sheet

  GNOME 3.X desktop have lot of cool inbuilt features like creating screen recordings, desktop refresh, theme refresh etc.. You can learn many thing by reading GnomeShell/CheatSheet

34.)Read about various GNOME 3.6 features

 Various GNOME 3.6.X features were covered by me through

• Details about GNOME Documents integration with Skydrive and Google Drive were dealt with in openSUSE 12.3 RC 1 GNOME 3.6
• Many Nautilus related changes and new features were covered in openSUSE 12.3 Milestone 1 GNOME 3.6
• GNOME Box and other features were covered through Quick Peek at GNOME 3.6

35.)DVD authoring tools

 Bombono DVD is a DVD authoring program for Linux. It is made easy to use and has nice and clean GUI (Gtk). To install Bombono you can run the command "sudo zypper in bombono" in terminal. It is very easy to create Video DVDs from individual video files using Bombono.

 36.)DVD Image Slideshows

 Imagination is a lightweight and simple DVD slide show maker for Linux. If you have a large collection of images and you want to burn them with a sound track this would be the go-to tool for you. To install Imagination you can use the command "sudo zypper in imagination" in terminal.

Download manager for file and video sharing sites on GNOME 3.4.2, openSUSE 12.2

 In order to automate and queue downloads from file sharing sites like 4shared, filejungle, depositfiles, mediafire etc.. and video sharing sites like youtube, dailymotion, vimeo etc., we can use a Java based downloader called FreeRapid on GNOME 3.4.2, openSUSE 12.2.

Step1:-

 We need to Install Sun JRE(Java Runtime Environment) for GNOME 3.4.2, openSUSE 12.2 . You can refer to this page to install the same.

Step 2:-

 Download the latest "All platforms" version of FreeRapid from this page.

Step3:-

 Extract the downloaded file using your favourite archive manager or just right click on the zip file to open Nautilus context menu and use the menu / option "Extract Here" to extract the contents.

Step4:-

 Open Alacarte (GNOME 3.X menu editor) and add the relevant menu item as shown below. Ensure that you are adding the full path to "frd.sh" in "Command" textbox.

open alacarte through command launcher

Add FreeRapid to Activities menu using Alacarte

Step5:-

 After adding FreeRapid to Activities, we can locate it by launching Activities (Alt+F1 or Left Win key) and then typing in search query as "freerapid" in "Activities" window.

Step 6:-

 If you open any youtube video or open a file sharing site and copy the url in your browser then it prompts you to download the relevant file or video as FreeRapid can monitor your clipboard. Clipboard monitoring can be toggled on and off using F7 key.

FreeRapid downloading one of my youtube videos

openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 edition too cool

 openSUSE Edu Li-f-e 12.2 is a spin off ISO based on openSUSE mantis. Unlike the original ISO the Education Life ISO is a highly polished bit of distribution. As the name suggests it is tailored to cater to the needs of your everyday life. It also has a bunch of educational software bundled in it. After installing the Linuz you need not bother about installation of OSS and Non-OSS software etc. I have never tried out openSUSE Edu Li-f-e before but now that i have taken it for a spin it is amazing. openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 edition is too cool to miss. It openSUSE on steroids.

• It has KDE, GNOME and Cinnamon too.
• It has all the required multimedia codecs pre installed. It runs almost all the restricted formats(mp3s, mp4s, flvs..). No more multimedia related tweaks :-)
• It has almost all the applications that you will need on a day to day basis.

There are multiple options available to download the ISOs

• You can download them directly from this url
• You can download using torrent clients using this torrent file.
• You can download using metalink(fast download using multiple mirrors) using this link or this link using a Firefox / Seamonkey browser Add-on called DownThemAll!

 For more information about openSUSE-Education Li-f-e distribution and creating live USB stick check out the following links:

• Portal:Education
• openSUSE:Education-Li-f-e
• SDB:Live USB stick

openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 KDE desktop

openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 Cinnamon desktop

openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 GNOME 3.4.2 desktop

 openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 Educational Software
 There are wide range of Educational software that come bundled in the ISO like Avogadro (molecule editor), klavaro (Typing tutor), Kanagram(Anagram game), Stellarium (Astronomical simulator)

 openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 Games Software
 There are the usual set of Games packaged with any other openSUSE version like gbrainy(favourite), chess, Freecell

 openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 Graphics Software
  If you into editing images and stuff then you are in luck as you have a whole gamut of software pre installed namely Inkscape, Blender, Gimp, sk1(vector graphics similar to CorelDRAW). For amateurish work you can use mtpaint and mypaint.

openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 Internet Software
 You have Browsers (Konqueror, Firefox), Soft Phone (Ekiga), Chat clients (Empathy, Kopete, Konversation, Pidgin), Mail clients (Claws, Evolution, Kmail), RSS / News clients (Akregator, Liferea) ,Torrent clients (Ktorrent, Tarnsmission), Twitter Client(Choqok),FTP client(gFTP) etc installed under internet related software category.

openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 Office Applications
 You the LibreOffice package installed as well as alternative Office software such as Abiword and Gnumeric installed. In addition you also get ultra cool Stardict(dictionary), GnuCash(Financial tool) and FBReader (e-book reader)

 openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 Programming Applications
 The Bywater BASIC Interpreter (bwBASIC) brought back fond memories of writing simple programs in basic language which is considered to be the best language to start off with. BlueJ which happens to be a Java IDE with with inbuilt "Class Diagram" editor was pretty functional and novel.I liked BlueJ as it could automatically draw Class Diagrams as we develop the project which is pretty cool and it is quite light weight too. You also have other IDEs like KDevelop4, MonoDevelop installed.

BlueJ in action

bwBASIC in action

openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 Sound &Video Applications
 As i have mentioned earlier the distribution supports all restricted formats. It has VLC, GM MPLAYER, Totem, Kaffeine as the video players. The audio players / music managers consist of Amarok, Banshee and Audacious. Hydrogen Drum machine is simply mind blowing and very easily to use. I randomly whipped up something and viola it turned into cool music.

openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 System Tools & Others
 The distribution comes with Htop pre-installed which is very good thinking on part of the developers. The GSEBLinux application is a cool Linux guide for newbies. Disks or palimpsest is a pretty good disk management utility. The distribution comes preinstalled with wine which saves time installing it.Using Dosbox you can play all your favourite DOS games

 Wine and Dosbox

Post banner created using text from fsymbols.com and GIMP

3 Cool ways to get Weather Updates on Mantis

 There are 3 Cool ways to get weather updates on Mantis openSUSE 12.2 / GNOME 3.4.2. They are through:-

• Gnome Shell Weather Extension
• Weather wallpaper &
• GKrellWeather

Gnome Shell Weather Extension
 It is a simple GNOME Shell extension which displays weather information for the required location through the top panel of your GNOME 3 desktop. The extension displays the current weather and also displays a forecast for the current day as well as the next day. The weather data is fetched from Yahoo! Weather.
Install Gnome Shell Extension Weather

• Since this extension is not currently available in openSUSE community  repositories we need to download the rpm from pkgs.org. The rpm is available for download through this page. I downloaded the rpm "gnome-shell-extension-weather-...noarch.rpm" from pkgs.org. We need to ensure that we are downloading the binary rpm packages and not the source files. You can install the extension using zypper ( CLI, Command Line Interface ) or through YaST Software manager( GUI, Graphical User Interface ).
• If you want to install through YaST software manager you need to "Create a repository out of your Local Directory or folder" and install the required rpm through YaST.
• If you want to install using zypper you can open a terminal by launching command launcher (Press ALT+F2) and then typing in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter key. In the terminal you need to navigate to the folder where your downloaded rpm is present using command "cd<SPACE><Full directory path>". The command "sudo zypper in gnome-shell-extension-weather-0-0.3.git393203b.fc17.noarch.rpm" can be used to install the weather extension. You may be prompted to enter the admin password during installation which you need to provide.

Configure Gnome Shell Extension Weather

• You can activate the extension using "gnome-tweak-tool"(through Alt+F2) / Advanced Settings program which is also available under GNOME activities tab.
• After activating the extension it will appear on the top panel. Click on the extension and open "weather settings". In weather settings you can use the "+" or plus button to bring up a search window where you can type in required city ( "Ho chi Minh") and after selecting appropriate entry press "OK". After that you can configure whether the weather data should be shown in metric or your preferred units.

Activate Extension using Advanced Settings

Search For Location and Save in weather settings

Extension Showing Weather

Weather wallpaper
 This is utility to create a wallpaper based on the current weather. It is a program which connects to noaa.gov site and gets the current weather at the specified location and creates and sets the desktop wallpaper based on the data retrieved.
Install Weather Wallpaper
 The program is available in Main Repository (OSS). Ensure that you have configured all the relevant community repositories. To know more about configuring community repositories you may take a look at this post under sub heading "Add Community Repositories using YaST". After configuring community repositories you can open gnome terminal through command launcher (press Alt+F2). In command launcher use the command "gnome-terminal" and press return or enter key. The command to use in terminal is "sudo zypper in weather-wallpaper". This command will install the GNOME weather wallpaper application. You may be prompted to enter the admin password during installation which you need to provide.
Configure Weather Wallpaper

• You can locate the "Weather Wallpaper" application under Start(left windows key) ==> Applications ==> Weather Wallpaper (Or) You can activate the application using command "weather-wallpaper" in the command launcher(Alt+F2) 
•  You need to get the 4 letter ICAO Location Indicator from this site and plug it into the tool. Enjoy the changing wallpapers.

Navigate to the required country to display the weather stations

Locate the necessary location and get the 4 letter code

After getting the code you can configure  the tool using the tray icon

Weather Wallpaper on Cloudy day

Weather Wallpaper on Rainy day

Weather Wallpaper during night

Add Weather Wallpaper to Startup
 If you want to start "Weather Wallpaper" along with your OS then you need to add the relevant application to "gnome-session-properties".

•  Press key combination "Alt+F2" and type in "gnome-session-properties" and hit enter key.
•  In the session properties windows click on the add button. Give any name of your liking. In the command text box you need to type in "weather-wallpaper" in lower case as demonstrated below. Press "Save" button and from next boot the application will start automatically.

Launch gnome-session-properties through command launcher(Alt+F2)

Configure Startup parameters

GKrellWeather
 GKrellWeather is a weather plugin for GKrellM. In  order to get weather updates through this plug-in you need to install GKrellM first. You can read more about GKrellM in detail here.
Install GKrellM and GKrellWeather

• The GKrellM program is available in Main Repository (OSS). To know how more about configuring community repositories take a look at this post . After configuring the repositories you can open gnome terminal through command launcher (press Alt+F2). In command launcher use the command "gnome-terminal" and press return or enter key. The command to use in terminal is "sudo zypper in gkrellm".
• Download the GKrellWeather plugin from this site. The direct download link is present in this page (OR)  You can download the same from pks.org using this link
• To Install GKrellM with weather plugin open the terminal (type in "gnome-terminal" after pressing Alt+F2 key). Navigate to the directory of the where your package or rpm is present using cd <space><dirname>. Execute the command "sudo zypper in gnome-shell-extension-weather-0-0.3.git393203b.fc17.noarch gkrellm". You may be prompted to enter the admin password during installation which you need to provide.

Configuring GKrellWeather Plug-in

• You can find GKrellM under Applications in standard GNOME desktop after installation. Optionally you can take a look at this post to learn how make GKrellM "Remember screen location" & "Set GKrellM as a panel or dock".
• You need to get the 4 letter ICAO Location Indicator from this site
• Then apply this code into the apply it to the plug-in as demonstrated below.

Navigate to the required country to display the weather

Locate the necessary location and get the 4 letter code

Right click on GKrellM window and click on configure menu and activate the weather plug-in

Enter the location code and click apply

To View weather updates place your pointer onto the weather plug-in

Add GKrellM to Startup
 If you need GKrellM along with your OS then you need to add it to "gnome-session-properties".

• Press key combination "Alt+F2" an type in "gnome-session-properties". Launch gnome-session-properties through command launcher.
• In the session properties windows press the add button. Provide any name of your liking. In the command text box you need to type in "gkrellm" in lower case as demonstrated below. Press "Save" button and from next boot the application will start automatically. 

Launch gnome-session-properties through command launcher(Alt+F2)

Configure Startup parameters

openSUSE 12.2 / GNOME 3.4.2 is out , Mantis rocks

 openSUSE 12.2 / GNOME 3.4.2 is out and live about 10 months after release of openSUSE 12.1 / GNOME 3.2. The code name for this release is Mantis as you all know. This release went through a lot of issues about which i discussed about in last post. This post is about preparing the ISO image for installation, things to do before installation and about the list of things to do after installing openSUSE 12.2 / GNOME 3.4.2.

How to prepare an ISO?
 I downloaded the openSUSE 12.2 GNOME live ISO which is available through download page. I usually prefer to download my ISOs through torrent as it is much faster and reliable that way. Additionally after downloading the ISO image i can perform a "verify" or hash check on the downloaded file to ensure the integrity of the ISO. I burned / wrote it onto a flash drive using SUSE Studio Image writer. You will face a slight hiccup here if you are using imagewriter in openSUSE 12.1 / GNOME 3.2. It will open from from GNOME Applications menu only if edit the menu using alacarte(Menu editor) and change the startup command to "gnomesu imagewriter %F". This is because SUSE Studio Image Writer needs to be run in admin mode :-(.

Are there Things to do before installation?
 I usually prefer a fresh install instead of upgrade because there is always a danger of incompatible libraries between old versions and newer versions on GNOME as well as openSUSE and sometimes there are even architectural changes between various of release like usr merge.
The following are the things to backup before proceeding with new installation.

• You obviously need to backup all your data files like videos, mp3s, text files, pdfs etc:

• You may also want to backup settings of the applications you have used before so that you need not loose any data and re-customize the applications on your new installation. To access your old application settings you should open nautilus (assuming you are using previous versions of GNOME) and then press "ctrl+h" and then navigate to your home directory. Some of the directories i would back up would be:-
• Notes from tomboy which are available in directory /home/<profileName>/.local/share/tomboy (or) ~/.local/share/tomboy
• Old stats folder for gkrellm available in directory /home/<profileName>/.gkrellm2 (or) ~/.gkrellm2
• Old bookmarks and browser (Firefox, Seamonkey) related settings which are present in /home/<profileName>/.mozilla (or) ~/.mozilla
• You can backup your thunderbird mails which are available here /home/<profileName>/.thunderbird (or) ~/.thunderbird
• Although not recommended you can also backup installed gnome shell extensions and migrate them to new desktop. The extension files are located in /home/<profileName>/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions (or) ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
• You may migrate your old themes from /home/<profileName>/.themes (or) ~/.themes

Things to do after installing openSUSE 12.2 / GNOME 3.4.2

01.)Check For Updates
 After installing your ISO you can open the command launcher (Alt+F2) and then open gnome terminal by typing in "gnome-terminal" and then pressing the return key. Then you can use the command "sudo zypper up" to check for available updates. You may need to provide the admin password that you have use during installation. You will be surprised about the number of updates that are waiting to get installed.

02.)Install your backed up application profiles
 You can opt to move all the application profiles which you have backed up as described above to respective folders in your new installation. You may need to change ownership of these files and folders if you see an "X" marked on the file or folder icon in Nautilus. To do you can open the command launcher (Alt+F2) and then open gnome terminal by typing in "gnome-terminal". You can recursively apply the change ownership command on all folders and subfolders by running the command "sudo chown -R <profileName> /home/<profileName>/" in your terminal. You may need to provide the admin password that you have use during installation of the ISO.

03.)Improve the desktops multimedia experience
 Since the default openSUSE installation doesn't provide the ship codecs for any of the restricted multimedia formats like mp3 we need to install them manually. There is a famous "one-click" installation procedure to overcome this predicament here .The recommended one-click for gnome desktop is named "codecs-gnome.ymp". That is it, click on the one-click installer and be ready with the trusted mouse and click on "Agree / I trust" buttons that appears endlessly one after the other. After the YaST installation exits press "Alt+F2" which opens the command launcher and type in "r" into the command launcher. This will refresh / restart your GNOME 3.X desktop.

04.)Install Mp3 support
If you don't have mp3 support even after using the above one click and get error similar to the below screenshot in gstreamer based applications like Banshee then you may need to install the mp3 codec. You can install mp3 codec through terminal by running the command "sudo zypper in gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3". During installation you may get a end user agreement prompt (--more--). If you see this press enter or return key till it goes away. After scrolling to 100% it will ask you to press y to confirm installation.

No mp3 support error in Banshee

05.)Install Audio/Mp3 Player
 There is no default audio player in openSUSE 12.2. There are a huge variety of options available for audio file management and playback. My recommendation would be Banshee. It integrates well with Media Player Indicator gnome shell extension through which you can control playback , volume and also preview cover art of the playing track. This extension sits on your top panel as soon as you open Banshee. You can install Banshee through terminal using command "sudo zypper in banshee banshee-extensions-default"

06.)Install Video player
 The default video player Totem is pretty good but not good enough. It is better to go in for a mplayer based media player. I would usually install gnome-mplayer after each installation. It is light weight, cute and functional. If you want to know all the options available i would take a look at this post for starters. Also i would recommend using mplayer2 which seems to claim that it is better than standard mplayer backend. Open the command launcher (Alt+F2) and then open gnome terminal by typing in "gnome-terminal" and hitting return or enter key. To install gnome-mplayer with mplayer2 as backend you can use this command in the terminal "sudo zypper in gnome-mplayer mplayer2-as-mplayer". If you prefer mplayer backend then you can use the command "sudo zypper in gnome-mplayer mplayer".

07.)Install Note Making application
 Unlike older versions of openSUSE Tomboy is not installed by default and for that matter there is no note making application on the GNOME desktop. To install tomboy open the command launcher (Alt+F2) and then open gnome terminal by typing in "gnome-terminal". Then you can run the command "sudo zypper in tomboy" to install Tomboy. You may need to provide the admin password that you have use during installation. Once you open the application it will automatically detect the old notes from your old profile which you have migrated to "~/.local/share/tomboy".

08.)Install GKrellM
 By installing GKrellM and the associated weather extension you can get the internet usage stats as well as weather updates. For simple installation you can run the command "sudo zypper in gkrellm" in terminal. You can see your old network usage stats if you had migrated your old stats to "~/.gkrellm2". Check this out For detailed review of GKrellM

09.)Install offline dictionary
 Artha is a cool offline dictionary which has many advanced features and very useful in day t day life. For simple installation you can run the command "sudo zypper in artha" in terminal. You can access artha once it is started through the key combination "ctrl+alt+w"

10.)Install favourite browser
 openSUSE 12.2 / GNOME 3.4 comes with Firefox as default browser. For installing any other browser you can run the following commands in terminal.

• To get Seamonkey (Web-browser, advanced e-mail, newsgroup and feed client, IRC chat, and HTML editing made simple—all your Internet needs in one application.) use "sudo zypper in seamonkey"
• To install Opera (really fast browser with inbuilt email client, torrent client and a irc chat client ) use "sudo zypper in opera-gtk"
• To install Chromium (open-source clone of infamous google chrome) use "sudo zypper in chromium"
• To install Epiphany (default browser for GNOME desktop) execute the command  "sudo zypper in epiphany"
• To install midori (light weight webkit based browser) use "sudo zypper in midori"

11.)Install Bleachbit
 Bleachbit has a huge variety of cool functions. According to the Bleachbit website it identifies and erases broken menu entries, cache, cookies, localizations, recent document lists, and temporary files in Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Bash, and 50 other applications. It can also Shred files to prevent recovery, and wipe free disk space to hide previously deleted files. It is your Linux equivalent of ccleaner in windows. You can install Bleachbit in terminal using the command "sudo zypper in bleachbit".

12.)Install Image editor
 Unlike previous versions of openSUSE the current version of GNOME doesn't have an image editor. Therefore one must install an image editor. If you want a basic editor then you can go in for Pinta. If you want an advanced image editor you need to go in for Gimp. To do this we must open the command launcher (press Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter key to open terminal. In this new window you can type in commands to install stuff. To install Pinta type in "sudo zypper in pinta" and then press return key. To install Gimp type in "sudo zypper in gimp" and then press return key.

13.)Install Java JDK / JRE
 If you need java installation to enable you to develop applications then you need JDK(Java Development Kit). If you don't want to develop any application in java and you just want to run some jars and some applets in the browser like Firefox then what you would need is to install JRE and JAVA Plugin. Due to some licensing issues, Oracle (Sun) Java JRE cannot be distributed through the official repositories of openSUSE since openSUSE 12.1. Here is a official quick guide to install newest and secure version of Java. For people who just want the software and averse to long procedure i would suggest installing them from user maintained repositories. openSUSE don't guarantee any stuff downloaded from user maintained repositories. I usually install from user maintained repositories and they work just fine.
To install JRE (packages are named java-...-sun-plugin-...rpm) . Installing using plugin link will automatically pull in the required JREs.
You can get JRE 1.6 here. alternatively you can also use these one-clicks (1,2,3,4,5) on openSUSE 12.2 for a simpler simple install.
You can get JRE 1.7 here. Here are the one-clicks (1,2) for a openSUSE 12.2 simple install.
To install JDK (packages are named java-...-sun-devel-...rpm)
You can get JDK 1.6 here. Here are the one-clicks(1,2,3,4,5) for a openSUSE 12.2 simple install.
You can get JDK 1.7 here. Here are the one-clicks(1,2) for a openSUSE 12.2 simple install.

14.)Install GNOME Shell Extensions / Remove Annoying "Universal Access"
 According to GNOME site GNOME Shell extensions are small pieces of code written by third party developers that modify the way GNOME works. If you are familiar with  Firefox Addons or Chrome Extensions , GNOME Shell extensions are similar to them. You can take a look at a few of the extensions in this post.

15.)Install Acrobat reader
  Evince is the default pdf document viewer for the GNOME desktop. It is already installed on openSUSE 12.2. For day to day purpose Evince is good enough. But it is not rich in features like Acrobat reader. To install Acrobat Reader we must open the command launcher (press Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter key to open terminal. In this new window we can type in commands to install stuff. To install Acrobat Reader type in "sudo zypper in acroread" and then press return or enter key.

16.)Enable desktop icons
 To enable desktop icons we must make nautilus as desktop manager instead of gnome shell. To do this we should open the command launcher (press Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-tweak-tool" and hit return key. in this Advanced Settings tool or Gnome-tweak-tool you can select "Desktop" in the navigation tree on the left and then turn ON nautilus as the desktop manager. You can optionally turn ON other options like "Computer Icon", "Home Icon", "Network Icon", "Trash Icon" etc...

Nautilus desktop with desktop icons

17.)Enable location bar in Nautilus
 One can enable location bar instead of path bar in nautilus. The advantages of using location bar are that you can always see the full path of the folder you are in and also copy paste the same if required.  To accomplish that we should open the command launcher (press Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-tweak-tool" and hit return key. You can then select "Files" in the navigation tree on the left and then turn on the required option as hsown below.

Before & after images of nautilus after turning on location bar

18.)Enable minimize maximize and close buttons in all applications
 One can easily enable minimize maximize and close buttons in all application windows in GNOME Shell. To do this we must open the command launcher (press Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-tweak-tool" and hit return key. You can select "Shell" in the navigation tree on the left and then select the required option which is "All" in menu "Arrangement of buttons on the title bar" as shown below. One can also enable other cool options like date in calendar which gets displayed in top panel, configure shutdown options etc.

Before & after images of nautilus after enabling maximize and minimize buttons

19.)Customize the Dash menu
 Th Dash menu is the menu bar which appear on the left hand side of the screen if you press the left windows key on your keyboard. You can easily Add and remove items, rearrange items in the DASH .A detailed post about customising the DASH is available here

20.)Add programs to start up
 You can easily Add and remove items to start up of your GNOME session. Open the command launcher (press Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-session-properties" and hit the return key. In this window you can click the "add" button on the right hand side of the window which will in turn open up a new window where you can type in the command that will launch the relevant applications when the system starts up. I would typically add the following applications to the startup of my GNOME based system:-

• Network Monitoring Tool(GKrellM)
• Offline Dictionary(Artha)
• Note Making Application(Tomboy)

Adding items to GNOME session startup

21.)Soup Up GNOME 3 Desktop using Opera Widgets
 If you had installed Opera as described in step 10 then you might try out opera widgets on your GNOME 3 desktop. They make cool desktop companions on the often spacious GNOME 3 desktop. Note:- Apparently available only till opera 11 version.

22.)Change Themes
You can try out various themes available for GNOME 3. For changing themes in GNOME 3 you need to change the following:-

• Background
• Icons
• GTK theme
• Shell theme

You can try out something similar to what is described here

23.)Change default applications
 If you need to change default applications on your desktop e.g.You want to make Opera default browser instead of Firefox then you should Open the command launcher (press Alt+F2). Then type in " gnome-control-center" and hit the return key. This will open an application where you can locate an application/applet by name "Details" under "System" category. Open "Details" and navigate to "Default Applications" on the tree lie menu on the left hand side of the application. Here you can change the default applications of your system.

24.)Force applications to appear in openwith list
 If you want some rogue applications to appear in nautilus file "open with" list (Or) when you right click on a file then you essentially need to edit the launcher in GNOME 3 Applications using Alacarte(menu editor) and add a %U after the command. For detailed explanation take a look at this post.

25.)Install archive manager
 Even though openSUSE 12.2 comes with a good archive manager in the form of File Roller we usually require archive mangers that have advanced functions

• Splitting the file into multiple parts and rejoin the split file
• Handle multiple file formats(7zip, xz, bzip2, gzip, zip, tar)
• Create self extracting executables 
• Encrypt archived files
• Test archived files
• Accessible through right click in Nautilus

J7Z is one such cool archive manager which satisfies all the above requirements and more. It has built in themes / skins too. To install J7Z we must open the command launcher (press Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter key to open terminal. Type in the command "sudo zypper in j7z" and then press return or enter key.

26.)Install clipboard manager
 For power users who miss the GNOME 2.X clipboard applet which was sitting prettily on the panel and wish you had similar application on your GNOME 3.X desktop then Glipper or Parcellite comes to your rescue. To install Glipper we must open the command launcher (press Alt+F2). Then type in "gnome-terminal" and hit return or enter key to open terminal. To install Glipper type in "sudo zypper in glipper" and then press return or enter key. To install Parcellite type in "sudo zypper in parcellite" and then press return or enter key. Parcellite / Glibber automatically adds itself to the start up list and it will start automatically when you boot GNOME the next time.

If you liked this post, check out:- 
3 Cool ways to get Weather Updates on Mantis openSUSE 12.2 / GNOME 3.4.2
                            (Or)
openSUSE-Education Li-f-e 12.2 edition too cool

Image at top of post created at flamingtext