I'm new to the openSUSE world

Greetings to everyone on this forum. I’m new to the openSUSE world and I have a lot of beginner’s questions, and the answers are in this forum are widespread in many topic , so I prayed that I get here in one place the answers to what interests me. Do not give me links to related topics because I read most of it and we still many things are not clear.

1.So far I have been for years on ubuntu, and I had a period of 5 years of support for LTS versions and upgrade to the new version of Ubuntu could very easily make the update manager with two clicks. In opensuse see that the support for the official 18 months so I wonder why such a short period of time and whether it is a simple upgrade to the new version or should always clean install?

  1. On the second occasion I ubuntu start installation of the operating system could also click on the option to immediately install the multimedia codecs, and then after we install everything works well: mp3, flash, java, mpeg4, dvd … I’m interested in who is the easy way in opensuse that we all multimedia works properly (and offline dvd mp3 online flash java misrosoft silverlight)?

3.Are these your official website from which you can install programs without fear of openSUSE: a) http://software.opensuse.org/131/en b) http://opensuse-guide.org/codecs.php)

4.I see that the firewall is immediately present, and I want the antivirus because some files on the network and letting them before I check before sending it to the server and web hosting. Which antivirus you recommend and how to properly install ?

  1. In a multi-function device have a scanner and a printer, scanner immediately recognized and installed a printer is not recognized automatically, but you have to manually install the HP F2200. Did I made ​​a mistake somewhere in the process?

  2. OpenSUSE I installed from scratch on a laptop, 1.75 GHz dual core, 8GB of RAM, the new machine, 64 bit, laptop has UEFI BIOS and secure boot, so I wonder whether openSUSE supports UEFI BIOS and the registration keys in secure boot, and that iso image to take off for installation on the laptop?

7.Sorry for the long question and the bad English. I’m working on specific tasks, and can not afford to have problems with the operating system and I’m wasting my time on debugging why all this detail I ask before I decide to Ubuntu to a different operating system. Ubuntu works great, but is ignored desktop users and therefore thinking about alternatives. I’m sure I’ll have more questions, but I believe you understand my caution and the need for a stable and secure operating system that is used for work.

On 2014-09-06 14:06, 4scan wrote:
> Greetings to everyone on this forum. I’m new to the openSUSE world and I
> have a lot of beginner’s questions, and the answers are in this forum
> are widespread in many topic ,

Sorry, no questions in this forum.

Didn’t you read the HUGE banner on top: “Please don’t ask products
questions here”? And the explanation on the side?

This forum is for you to explain to us how to do things, not for asking
us how to do things.

So please request a moderator to move your post elsewhere. Use the
report button below, the triangle.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

I apologize for my ignorance. Please moderators to transfer the topic in the right place.

Moving to applications.

Thread moved and open for consumption…

On 2014-09-06 16:36, malcolmlewis wrote:
>
> 4scan;2663084 Wrote:
>> Greetings to everyone on this forum. I’m new to the openSUSE world and I
>> have a lot of beginner’s questions, and the answers are in this forum
>> are widespread in many topic , so I prayed that I get here in one place
>> the answers to what interests me. Do not give me links to related topics
>> because I read most of it and we still many things are not clear.

Notice that what happens when you write about different issues in the
same post is that the thread will become confused. Responders may reply
to just some of the questions, and the rest will become unseen.
Typically it is best one thread per question.

>> 1.So far I have been for years on ubuntu, and I had a period of 5 years
>> of support for LTS versions and upgrade to the new version of Ubuntu
>> could very easily make the update manager with two clicks. In opensuse
>> see that the support for the official 18 months so I wonder why such a
>> short period of time and whether it is a simple upgrade to the new
>> version or should always clean install?

Yes, the official support is too short, I agree. Other people don’t.
However, there is a openSUSE project that gives LTS to selected releases
for about 2 years more. Support is not given by staffers, but volunteers
(with some help from some staffers), and it doesn’t include extra repos
(it is up to the maintainer of each repo to include Evergreen or not). I
suggest not to upgrade KDE/Gnome, for instance, if you intend to use
Evergreen - IMO.

openSUSE:Evergreen

13.1 is thus an LTS.

About upgrading the system to the next release, it is not a single click
operation, and this is intentional. You must do certain manual things
for upgrading.

Online upgrade
method

Offline upgrade
method

Chapter 16. Upgrading the System and System Changes
Chapter 16. Upgrading the System and System Changes
openSUSE 12.3 Release Notes
openSUSE 13.1 Release Notes

>> 2. On the second occasion I ubuntu start installation of the operating
>> system could also click on the option to immediately install the
>> multimedia codecs, and then after we install everything works well: mp3,
>> flash, java, mpeg4, dvd … I’m interested in who is the easy way in
>> opensuse that we all multimedia works properly (and offline dvd mp3
>> online flash java misrosoft silverlight)?

If you go to the multimedia forum here you see a sticky post at the top.
Just the very first post.

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/452884-Multimedia-in-One-Click
Long explanation:
https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/407184-multi-media-restricted-format-installation-guide#post2180319

Current one click:

http://opensuse-community.org/

Explanations and guides:

https://en.opensuse.org/Restricted_formats
http://opensuse-community.org/
http://software.opensuse.org/codecs
http://opensuse-guide.org/codecs.php

Flash you install from the official non-oss repo, which you have active
by default. Microsoft, forget it.

Further questions in the Multimedi forum here, please.

>> 3.Are these your official website from which you can install programs
>> without fear of openSUSE: a) http://software.opensuse.org/131/en

That’s the official openSUSE site. I don’t understand the thing about
“fear of openSUSE”.

>> 4.I see that the firewall is immediately present, and I want the
>> antivirus because some files on the network and letting them before I
>> check before sending it to the server and web hosting. Which antivirus
>> you recommend and how to properly install ?

None.

Please give a valid reason for wanting to run a (windoze) antivirus in
Linux, and then I’ll try to give further advice. :-)))

>> 5. In a multi-function device have a scanner and a printer, scanner
>> immediately recognized and installed a printer is not recognized
>> automatically, but you have to manually install the HP F2200. Did I made
>> ​​a mistake somewhere in the process?

Please ask separate question in hardware forum here.

>> 6. OpenSUSE I installed from scratch on a laptop, 1.75 GHz dual core,
>> 8GB of RAM, the new machine, 64 bit, laptop has UEFI BIOS and secure
>> boot, so I wonder whether openSUSE supports UEFI BIOS and the
>> registration keys in secure boot, and that iso image to take off for
>> installation on the laptop?

Please ask separate question in boot-installation-login forum here.

(Yes, of course UEFI is supported, and secure mode is supported)

>
> Thread moved and open for consumption…

Thanks, Malcolm.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

Clamav

Install in Yast=>Software Management

I am guessing that 4scan means something along the lines of “safe for openSUSE” / “without risk to openSUSE.”

On 2014-09-07 06:16, Fraser Bell wrote:
>
> 4scan;2663084 Wrote:
>>
>> 4.I see that the firewall is immediately present, and I want the
>> antivirus because some files on the network and letting them before I
>> check before sending it to the server and web hosting. Which antivirus
>> you recommend and how to properly install ?
>>
>
> Clamav
>
> Install in Yast=>Software Management

Yes, but what for? To protect what? The work case has to be defined,
because just installing it does nothing. Then what, scan Linux itself?
Pointless. Scan email? Scan samba shares? Those two are valid concerns
(for Windows machines being served, not for Linux), but what is wanted
needs to be specified in order to give advice on how to install/use the
antivirus…


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

Thank you to everyone who has responded to my questions. For term security for opensuse I thought if they are one-click site official and whether the installation of these sites may threaten the stability of the operating system. Also on the site (** http://software.opensuse.org/131/en **, **http://opensuse-guide.org/codecs.php **) do not see that it will install 32 or 64-bit version. I have a 64 bit system.

I do not know whether the default installed some sensors or I have to install something that I saw temperatures CPU, VGA, HDD …

Antivirus me having to check the file to be sent to the web host and the other pc which are windows based.

OK one clicks are ok but in general if the package does not come from a reg repo you need to not keep the repo active since you don’t know what else may come from it. In general it is ok but there are some that can damage you so until you learn you need to disable any new repo that a one click might add.

You need to break your questions into multiple threads one question per thread please

On 2014-09-10 16:56, 4scan wrote:
>
> Thank you to everyone who has responded to my questions. For term
> security for opensuse I thought if they are one-click site official and
> whether the installation of these sites may threaten the stability of
> the operating system.

I don’t understand this question.

Are you asking about the one-click multimedia on the sites I posted? As
far as I know, they are all safe.

> Also on the site (*
> http://software.opensuse.org/131/en *,
> *http://opensuse-guide.org/codecs.php *) do not see that it will install
> 32 or 4-bit version. I have a 64 bit system.

That’s a different question. But it is automatic, you do not need to
care. If you need more info, please start a new thread in the multimedia
forum; but first, read the sticky on top.

> I do not know whether the default installed some sensors or I have to
> install something that I saw temperatures CPU, VGA, HDD …

Again, that’s a different question. Please start a new thread in
application forum (ie, this one) about what exactly you want to know
about it.

> Antivirus me having to check the file to be sent to the web host and the
> other pc which are windows based.

Well, as your machine can not be infected, it is almost pointless. But
yes, email can be scanned. I use amavis-ng combined with clamav for this
task. However, that’s a server type setup, I don’t know if that is to
your liking :-?

Perhaps somebody else can comment on how to combine an antivirus and
your mail client of choice - but then, please start a new thread in this
forum with a tittle related to that question.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

Responding to various specific questions, building on other responses

  1. Carlos’ response about Evergreen is good about openSUSE LTS

  2. Carlos’ response to follow the stickies in the Multimedia forum is good

  3. Ordinarily, you can find apps one of 3 main ways
    YAST Software Management - As a new openSUSE user, you should get acquainted with YAST immediately. It is your collection of various tools to easily install and configure practically everything using “wizards.” This is a feature far superior to anything you’ll find in any other distro including Ubuntu. You’ll avoid a lot of headache and wasted time by going to YAST before considering any other way to install and configure.

  • zypper is the command line tool alternative for YAST. Although sometimes not quite as informative, it’s very powerful and often faster and simpler than using YAST for software app managment.

To understand how to use zypper, read the MAN pages, ie

man zypper

and invoke command line help

zypper --help

So, one example which is to update your system, pulling down all latest packages(I recommend you run the following immediately if you haven’t)

zypper update
  • There are many additional specialty repositories and your default install isn’t configured by default to access all of them, the default is only the basic system and Desktop. If you want latest or packages for special use, you should open a web browser to “http://software.opensuse.org” In most cases the website will automatically configure for your version of openSUSE, and when you search here you search all available packages in both official and personal repositories.
  1. Anti-virus is usually irrelevant to Linux since most exploits are written to the Windows platform but that is not always the case. Besides “cleansing” files to be transferred elsewhere, there are also application level malware that exploits apps like web browsers. If you want to guard against this, ClamAV is most commonly used. If you’re running KDE, there is also a GUI ClamAV frontend.

  2. Inspect what is available in CUPS. Also, it’s usually helpful to install hplip regardless whether you’re connecting to an HP device or not.

  3. Yes, openSUSE supports secure boot as well as it can be implemented. There is some general discussion(not specific to openSUSE but the whole implementation) however how effective or required this type of security is.

  4. I’m sure you’ll find openSUSE a really nice choice. In particular, if you work with the command line at all, I’d recommend you try out what the console looks like in openSUSE, regardless of desktop, you’ll find color coding and easily set preferences. I personally love the way vim works and am contnually frustrated by unintuitive behavior in other distros.

Regarding 32-bit or 64-bit install, this is determined by your install media.
So, for example if you download your media from http://software.opensuse.org you can select 32-bit or 64-bit install media as well as your preferred method to download.

Regarding sensors,
From what I’ve seen, it looks like nowadays the actual sensors are now largely available in the kernel instead of installed as separate user-mode packages. But, you still need to install an app that knows how to read the sensors. Like everything else in openSUSE find and read the related MAN pages.

HTH,
TSU

On 2014-09-12 20:16, tsu2 wrote:
> Regarding 32-bit or 64-bit install, this is determined by your install
> media.
> So, for example if you download your media from
> http://software.opensuse.org you can select 32-bit or 64-bit install
> media as well as your preferred method to download.

Beware that the developers and packagers at openSUSE want to remove the
32 bit version. Many people complain against that idea, but nevertheless
they want to do it, and it is fact less tested.

For instant, 13.1–32b went out broken: hibernation triggered
a bad kernel bug that took months to be corrected.

They say that the 32 bit version will last only as long as businesses
want it (read it: SLES), and they contend that they don’t, that they use
recent hardware. But someone pointed out that they used many (hundreds?)
of virtualized setups all running 32 bits, on production.

So it is not sure /when/ the 32 bit version will disappear…

Just a saying :slight_smile:


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

Yes, I have a lot of machines running 32-bit openSUSE. When that time comes, it will mean a forced switch to some other distro.>:)

Thanks to everyone here who helped me advice and instructions.
From now on I will post one at issue, the scheduled topics, like me and went.
Thanks to everyone once again.

Good luck with your efforts. A number of us are long-in-the-tooth openSUSE users (myself since 2001) and have stuck with the distribution because we like it, and know quick workarounds for its quirks/limitations.

I was on vacation during your initial questions, and I see you obtained excellent answers. Some further tidbits relevant to some of your questions:

The duration of openSUSE support has changed many times during the past 13 years of my useage. Typically, if one wants really long term support, and cares not for cutting edge, then the commercial SLED (SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) full fills that role. I prefer openSUSE myself.

Note that every now and then, an openSUSE release is earmarked by the openSUSE community for support LONGER than 18-months, as indicated by tsu2 and robin_listas (Carlos). I believe the plan is for openSUSE-13.1 to be earmarked for Evergreen support, which means it will have support for over twice the nominal openSUSE 18-month support period.

wrt whether one does a clean install, or an update, really is an individual choice. The update process has improved over the years, as the package ‘zypper’ has improved, and I think also the packagers have improved how they package. Still there are some of the old-long-in-the-tooth users like myself, who prefer to do a clean install every release, although we keep our old /home. Both approaches have their drawbacks and their advantages.

I hope you get a good answer here. Are you trying to check Windows software virus ? or GNU/Linux software virus ? I’ll let others give advise wrt the best GNU/Linux package for detecting MS-Windows virus.

wrt detecting GNU/Linux virus, honestly, as a long in tooth user, I would be very cautious as to your expectations as to what benefit any GNU/Linux antivirus software will bring. The best way to gauge / test antivirus software is to put it in a sandbox and check its effectiveness against known virus. That is VERY difficult to do with any GNU/Linux antivirus application due to their being very few GNU/Linux virus to check against. Hence most anti-virus software to detect GNU/Linux virus are, IMHO, questionable.

Your BIGGEST security risk in GNU/Linux is not virus. Rather its someone hacking your system via an open SSH port, or via a root kit trojan from a browser or some method OTHER than a virus. Your BIGGEST benefit is GNU/Linux is relatively unpopular, so the crackers of the world are not so much interested in writing virus to attack GNU/Linux.

I always recommend installing the application ‘hplip’ which is in the default OSS respositories, but not installed by default.

Speaking of repositories - I recommend you keep them to a minimum. The more repositories you add, the MORE it will slow down your software update and create the risk of a badly packaged application creating havoc. I typically recommend only keeping the OSS, Non-OSS, Update, Non-OSS-update and Packman repositories and NO OTHERS. NONE. I do note I am ultra conservative here and many do not follow this view of mine.

I run my openSUSE-13.1 on a Toshiba laptop and also on my desktop, both with UEFI BIOS and secure boot.

One final piece of advice, to get quick help when impatient wrt the forum being slow for responding to a need for help. Always do a google search for help with search terms such as: " openSUSE wiki <problem-topic> " … For example, for help on how to best install Skype, type in google “openSUSE wiki Skype” and you will get a link to a good wiki on installing Skype. This is TRUE for many topics.

The other way is to go to the openSUSE IRC chat channel on Freenode (I use the basic program ‘xchat’ to do this). There is some information on openSUSE communication channels here: openSUSE:Communication channels - openSUSE Wiki and here: openSUSE:Marketing communication process - openSUSE Wiki

Good luck, and welcome to our forum.