Opera 9.5 Beta 2

Opera 9.5 Beta 2 is out. The reason I am excited about this is that I have an x86_64 processor running linux. Opera 9.5 is the first version of Opera to be 64 bit compatible. Finding the x86_64 binary on their website however isn't all that easy. To find it, you have to navigate the mirror site which you have selected to download from. I used this one:

ftp://opera.nsc.no/pub/nsc.no/mirrors/operasoftware/linux/950b2/final/en/x86_64/

The easiest way to try beta 2 is to download the tar.gz file, unzip to your favourite folder and just run the opera executable.

Read about the next version of Opera here.

Happy browsing!

HowTo: OpenSUSE 10.3 With Compiz Fusion

I had a very painful process getting OpenSUSE 10.3 with Compiz Fusion working. These are the steps which worked for me:

Hardware:
Compal Multinote HGL30 laptop
Nvidia Geforce GO 7600 graphics
Intel Core 2 Duo 2ghz processor

Warning: I'm translating the menu and button texts from Norwegian to English and you might find that it doesn't correlate with the actual English version.

I'm dividing the steps so that in the event of a crash you would have a better chance of knowing which part failed.

(1) Install OpenSUSE by booting DVD(I'm using the x86_64 version).

Select online archives.
Select KDE (Gnome failed every time trying to download some msttfonts-patch xml file).
Agree to updating.

(2) Activate repositories

Open YaST2 control center. Go to software and community repositories. Activate the following repositories:

Main Repository(NON-OSS)
Main Repository for updates
Main Repository(OSS)
NVIDIA Repository
Packman Repository
VideoLan Repository
OpenSUSE BuildService - X11:XGL

Note: All of these might not be necessary.

After adding these it might be a good idea to right click the update icon in the systray and click "Check Now".

(3) Install NVIDIA Driver

The 1-Click install did not work at all for me. I had multiple problems including xorg not finding the nvidia module when starting. Instead I used the "Install programs via Zen" application. Search for nvidia, check "x11-video-nvidiaG01" ( not the legacy x11-video-nvidia ) and confirm. Log out and log back in to make xorg use the new driver.

Make a backup of your xorg.conf config file.

Type the following commands in a terminal window as root:
nvidia-xconfig --composite
nvidia-xconfig --render-accel
nvidia-xconfig --add-argb-glx-visuals

Log out and log back in to apply the changes.

(4) Install Compiz Fusion

Click "Install programs via Zen".
Search for compiz.
Check compiz-fusion-kde and confirm.

Open up a terminal window and type:
ccsm &

This will open up the compiz settings manager. Click the effects category and find "Window Decoration".

Enter the following in the "command" field:
kde-window-decorator --replace &

Close the settings manager, open up a terminal window and type:
compiz ccp --replace &

Admire your desktop. :)

Additional steps would be making the "compiz ccp --replace &" command start when logging in. This can be accomplished by putting an executable script with the above command in the ~/.kde/Autostart/ directory.

If your kde desktop switcher doesn't play nice with the compiz fusion desktop switching shortcuts, try running the command(as a regular user):
dcop kicker kicker restart

This is mostly just a memo for my own use. Please add your own comments if you see any errors in the article.

Problems and their solutions

Ever got stuck trying to accomplish something and couldn't figure out what to do? In addition you might have found that what you are trying to do isn't documented.

This is an attempt to make a library of problems and their solutions. Whenever I face a problem with a solution worth writing about, I will do so here. Hopefully this blog will be useful for me and others.