The road to systemd for openSUSE 12.1

Hi all,



systemd is coming for next openSUSE (12.1) scheduled next fall.

I'll help for systemd integration in openSUSE Factory and will act as an interface between you (openSUSE testers, packagers, developers) and systemd upstream.

As you might guess, switching boot manager is not a trivial task and issues will be found. So, we want to have as much feedback and testing as possible, to try to tackle as much (if not all) issues in time for 12.1.

Here is our action plan, in several phases:

• phase 1: detecting current issues with systemd. Install systemd package and "manually" boot with it, by adding "init=/bin/systemd" at you kernel boot command line. In this setup, we want to find ALL the issues caused by switching to systemd, so please, check systemd on Factory status page and follow the instructions there to fill bug reports. We also want to ensure there is no regression, when using legacy sysvinit initscripts with systemd as boot manager.
• phase 2: systemd-sysvinit package installed by default and replace sysvinit.
• phase 3: providing systemd unit files to replace legacy sysvinit initscripts: this is a huge task which won't be completed before openSUSE 12.1, but it can be parallelized among a lot of people (ideally, each packager should be able to create unit systemd file). And we should also split this effort in manageable milestones :
• phase 3.1: GNOME and KDE live CDs should only use "native" systemd, without any sysvinit involved
• phase 3.2: installed system using GNOME and KDE live CDs be a "native" systemd (this involves testing additional paths in live installer)
• phase 3.3: install from DVD for GNOME and KDE should be "native" systemd

Of course, providing systemd unit file should not be a pure "openSUSE" task, because the ultimate goal for those files is to be cross-distribution and merged in relevant upstream projects. And we also don't want to duplicate effort which is starting in other distributions like Fedora, so, collaboration is key. I strongly recommend reading systemd for Administrators, Part III post about the conversion (and also all other posts : systemd for Administrators #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7,#8 they are highly instructive).

For discussing / helping with systemd integration for Factory, please use opensuse-factory mailing list or go to #opensuse-factory IRC channel on Freenode.

We need your help to make sure openSUSE 12.1 will use systemd at 200% ;)

GNOME 3 Live image release 1.3.0 - VirtualBox, here we come

Hi all,



good news for Virtual Machine addicts : VirtualBox team has fixed issues which were preventing VirtualBox to work properly with GNOME Shell. You need VirtualBox release 4.0.8 (minimum) and GNOME 3 live image release 1.3.0 (it contains updated VirtualBox guest additions, required for openGL).

To download the image :  http://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome/

Enjoy.

ISO image for GNOME3 promo DVD available for download

Hi all,



a quick post for people who want the GNOME 3 promo DVD iso image (it is based on 1.1.0 image, combining both x86 and x86-64 images and some demo video and music).

You can download it at : http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/misc/promo-dvd/

Beware this image will not be updated, it is just there for archiving purpose.

GNOME 3 Live image 1.2.0 released / GNOME 3.0.1 for openSUSE 11.4

Hi everyone,


two news for this week-end :

• GNOME 3.0.1 is now available for openSUSE 11.4, in GNOME:STABLE:3.0 repository. See http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:GNOME_3.0 on how to use this repository.
• Live image has been regenerated to use GNOME 3.0.1. It is available at http://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome/ (version 1.2.0)

Oh, I forgot : GNOME3 promo DVDs have been delivered to GNOME Foundation ;)

Enjoy !

GNOME 3 Live image version 1.1.0 released

Hi everyone, it is me again (yes, I know two posts in two days, incredible ;)



In the past week, we have been working on both GNOME:STABLE:3.0 repository and on creating a GNOME 3 Promo DVD, based on this live image, but with more content on it (LibreOffice, Banshee 2.0, etc..). Because of this, image size has increased a bit (950MB)

Good news too, we fixed KMS issues with some Radeon cards people reported when using live image (problem was fixed once the image was installed).

This new image (1.1.0) is now based on GNOME:STABLE:3.0 repository and contains all security and bugfix updates for openSUSE 11.4.

To download the image, go to http://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome/

Enjoy !

GNOME 3.0 available for openSUSE 11.4

Hi everyone,



openSUSE GNOME team has been busy polishing GNOME 3.0 packages for openSUSE 11.4 but here they are, for your pleasure


Everything is explained at : http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:GNOME_3.0
including :

• how to install GNOME 3 using 1-click install from your favorite Web browser,
• how to switch from my previous repository (home:fcrozat:gnome3, which will be soon phased out) to the new repository. This is important to continue receiving updates, for instance, if you installed live image on your system.

A new live image will be available shortly, based on this new repository (but this will be for another blog post).

Enjoy !

GNOME3 Live image 1.0.0 released - It is about time

Hi everybody,

just in time for GNOME 3.0 release, I'm please to announce GNOME 3 Live Image version 1.0.0 release.

As you might expect, this release is built with GNOME 3.0.0. Other features, compared to latest image release :

• radeon KMS should be fixed (it was preventing GNOME Shell to start since version 0.3.1)
• speech-dispatcher is used for speech synthesis (ie Orca)
• tracker is installed on the image
• more fonts are installed by default

Live installer is also available from the running image, just search for "live" in GNOME-Shell overview panel (or you can still start the live install by adding liveinstall to boot command line).

As always, you can download the image from http://gnome3.org/tryit.html

For openSUSE 11.4 users, we will soon make a stable repository available with GNOME 3.0, watch this space for more info ;)


As a side note, I'd like to thanks my employer (Novell) and my managers who allowed me to work on GNOME 3 for weeks fulltime.

Enjoy.