opensuse 11.2 errata

By basd on Feb 4, 2010 | In opensuse

Just a few things happening on my install(s).

...

Running the KDE 4.4 RC3 from the Factory repositories. For some reason, when my Gateway comes back from hibernate, the connect speeds are awful and I have to reboot. This is new.

I stumbled across LXDE, a lightweight desktop. I haven't had too much problem with KDE, so I don't know whether there is any point to this. Idle CPU usage with plasma is usually fairly low. I didn't find a significant improvement on my Toshiba A15 running IceWM, so I haven't worried about desktop bloat too much.

But, as the Toshiba is my primary music server, I keep stumbling into issues. As noted here previously, OpenSUSE 11.2 wouldn't run??? So, I'm using OpenSUSE 11.1.

Some time ago, I switched to Banshee as the music player because although I like Amarok, when it scans my music collection it ramps the CPU up to 100% for a half hour, hitting temps as high as 198 deg. F. Too much! I had used Songbird for awhile, but it ran into CPU problems and I never switched back to it (even though as far as I know the CPU problems are solved.

But, LXDE launches Amarok 2, which doesn't have smart playlists! And, Banshee didn't launch for some reason. So, I ran songbird and it ran quite nicely.

LXDE picked up some of my useful startups from KDE, such as launching the KDE3 kicker bar (which I run for access to the Kima applet and also as a backup for plasma crashes.) Also picked up my internet connection, etc. But, it uses the Xscreensaver system, which does not come with the xclock installed -- and I use the clock screensaver as an important clock resource in my living room. And, I run a slideshow of images on the desktop, sort of like using the computer as a nice photo album when the clock screensaver has not come on yet.

I can implement both of these features in LXDE, because I did it in IceWM, but it's extra bother, so I rebooted back to KDE4.

Now I'm loading LXDE onto my Gateway netbook to see if there really is any speed increase and energy savings. Will be interesting and I wonder if it will be worth all the tinkering necessary to get my essential programs (such as my blackberry tethering and my OpenOffice data system) running.

We'll see. The first effort didn't work so well, as I think I picked the wrong repository from OpenSUSE Build Service, so I'm trying again. (Several of the programs did not install in the first go-round.) [later: -- no, still won't install a bunch of programs. Don't understand the problem here, it installed okay on my Sony, which is also running OpenSUSE 11.2 and KDE 4.3. Hmmm...]

BTW, a reader sent me a solution for the save-to-ram problem on the Gateway. I'll try to get it posted here soon!