The Easiest Way How to Modify Installation System

Motivation
Sometimes, there is a need to check some patch in the installation system. Of course, we have an article that describe how to Create a Modified Installation System but this one takes a lot of time to prepare, you need a remote server and several things can break.

You can also use Driver Update, but that expects you are able to build RPM with the changes you want to test.

Here you can see the simplest way...

Starting-Up
Start installation from media by adding startshell=1 to the Linuxrc commandline. This will make installation open a shell window before starting YaST/Installer.

You can also boot directly to the installation without adding startshell=1 to the command line but it that case you can't change files that are loaded when the installer starts. Your choice :)

Preparing Installation System
By default, the installation system is read-only but we can cheat it ;)! Let's assume we want to change some YaST script in /usr/share/YaST/clients/ directory in this example.

# The only writable directory is /tmp (and /var...)
cd /tmp
# Copy all clients to /tmp
mkdir clients
cp -ar /usr/share/YaST/clients/* /tmp/clients/
# Bind the writable directory to the original location
mount --bind /tmp/clients /usr/share/YaST/clients

Now you can edit, extend, remove, compile ... etc. the writable clients directory. Hint: If you want to start network (and your network supports DHCP) to copy the patched sources using network, just simply enter dhcpcd eth0 (or similarly according to your current setup).

And ... that's all folks!

Continuing with the Installation
If you have used startshell=1, just simply enter exit command or press Ctrl+d.

openSUSE Community Week

Are you interested in openSUSE? Would you like to discus openSUSE 11.2 or anything else with developers? Do you need a helping hand for your project? Are you looking for any piece of information about openSUSE?

You can find this and much more on IRC at freenode.org right now because the openSUSE Community Week has already started. It runs for May 11 through 17th.

There are several IRC channels already (#opensuse-project, #opensuse-kde, #opensuse-gnome, ...). Find out more:

• Community Week at opensuse.org
• Community Week at Facebook
  

YaST Has New Icons / Mascot ... Finally :)

Finally, we have new YaST icons created by Jimmac based on Klara's idea for the YaST Mascot Contest. Thanks to both :)

The abbrev YaST means Yet another Setup Tool, however it is also used to install or upgrade your system. To find out which YaST modules are installed in your system, write /sbin/yast2 as root in terminal and press the [Tab] key three times - YaST already supports command-line completion.

SLE 11: New YaST Documentation Available

I've just uploaded a brand new YaST documentation for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server/Client 11. You can find it at here: http://forgeftp.novell.com/yast/doc/SLES11/.

If you would like to modify or create some YaST module for SLE 11, you can find the most recent sources in our subversion repository.

Installation: Enough Space for Every Dialog

Some installation dialogs of openSUSE 11.1 suffer from having not enough space in lower resolutions, e.g. 800x600. As a work around, Bubli has implemented a movable QSplitter that allows you to hide the installation steps which makes dialog space wider. You can check it out in openSUSE 11.2 Alpha0.

The first screenshot shows a YaST Partitioner in 800x600 resolution during installation. Buttons are not displayed correctly, the menu-tree (System View) hides endings of some entries.

Here you can see the same dialog after moving the splitter to the left side. There is enough space for nearly everything.

This actually means that we can use 133% of your monitor :) ;)

Geeko Wants You!

Alberto Passalacqua has recently created a new wiki page for community-driven initiative Geeko Wants You! This page is for both 'those who are asking for help' and 'those who would like to help'.

Do you think you can't help making openSUSE better because you don't have enough programming skills? You don't have to code anything: you can, for instance, help improving the Wiki, SDB articles, or just write your opinions on the current solutions or document them for the others.

Although the page is still being heavily developed there are already several areas you can help with (Art and Branding, Communication, Packaging, Testing, Translation, Wiki). Thanks in advance :)

Google Summer of Code 2009 - openSUSE is Looking for Mentors and Students

Last year, openSUSE participated in Google Summer of Code 2008 and we'd like to participate this year as well.

We (Stanislav Visnovsky, Jiri Srain and I) have already proposed some GSoC Ideas (partly based on the BrainStorming Prague feedback) and now we are looking for projects mentors and students. Of course, the list of ideas is not fixed and it is still in progress...

It's a great opportunity to get in touch with Google-driven stipended open source software development during this summer. Use your talent with mentors help, use what you have learned in school, get some more work experience. Enjoy your work and find new friends. Think about your future.

Are you a student? Would you like to pick strawberries or tomatoes this summer? Would you like to work as desk clerk, shop assistant, or dishwasher in some restaurant? Why? Apply to some of the openSUSE Google Summer of Code Ideas. Extend the ideas.

You should know that Google can still turn down your project, however, it depends also on you whether the project is good and can have a reasonable output.