Encontro Nacional de openSUSE 2008


The acronym ENOS stands for 'Encontro Nacional de openSUSE', a Portuguese expression which can be translated to 'National openSUSE Meeting', an event meant to unite the Portuguese openSUSE users.

The purpose of ENOS is to give an opportunity to the Portuguese openSUSE users to be together, as well as provide the participants an insight view on the latest developments on the openSUSE project and stimulate them to take an active part on the community itself.

ENOS 2008 is the second yearly edition (read about ENOS 2007 here) of the event and will be held in Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP), Porto, Portugal on September 6th.

This year we will have special guests giving some talks:
  • Ricardo Cruz (YaST-GTK maintainer) will introduce us YaST and how easily is to create a module for it. PackageKit and libzypp will be be introduced.

  • Andreia Gaita (Mono developer) presenting Mono open source project, sponsored by Novell.

  • Rui Capela (Linux Audio hacker) will talk about his audio applications, focusing on Qtractor, an Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application.


(click to enlarge)

As in last year, attendees will have the opportunity to do the LPI Certification Exams at the event with a 50% discount off by LPI Master Affiliate DRI. Email eventos@opensusept.org to sign in.

Anyone interested in attend should sign in or email eventos@opensusept.org so we can have a better idea of how many people we should expect (tip: you will not leave the event without some openSUSE goodies!).

Big thanks to Porto Linux, ISEP, and Novell for the support!

openSUSE 11.0 KDE3 Live CDst

I have been reading since openSUSE 11.0 GM release a lot of comments posted in many forums and blogs about the "lake" of KDE3 CDs. This big noise around got my attention specially because I was one of the KDE users that shared people's preferences of using a very stable KDE version - KDE 3.5 - for daily use instead of the bleeding edge KDE 4.0.

The process of installing KDE3 on openSUSE no matter what desktop environment users were using was quite simple to follow:

# zypper install -t pattern kde3

or if you just want a clean KDE 3 base:

# zypper install --no-recommends -t pattern kde3

or even by selecting "KDE3 Base System" pattern on YaST. Easy, isn't it?

Well, for those lazy people who don't want to install openSUSE with KDE4, GNOME, XFCE or any other and then install KDE3 I have a gorgeous news: openSUSE 11.0 KDE3 Live CDs are now available!



These Live CDs are also installable CDs and were creating using the openSUSE KIWI Image System. They contain the latest official updates as also the latest packages from KDE:KDE3, KDE:Backports, KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop, and KDE:KDE4:Factory:Extra-Apps repositories as of this time of writing.

Big thanks to the KDE Team and Kiwi Team that supported me since the beginning encouraging and helping me in this adventure ;-)


Note: these ISOs are not officially supported by openSUSE nor Novell. If you want to report any bug found use Novell's Bugzilla for better tracking. Feedback or for any other purpose please contact me via email (cgoncalves [at] opensuse [dot] org).
Replying to "OpenSuse adopta estratégia da Canonical para promover o projecto" (aka "openSUSE adopts Canonical's strategy to promote the project") posted by Bruno Miguel:

The openSUSE project does this for quite long, even maybe before Ubuntu exists.
The news here is that now we have a specific page to users request them easily instead of emailing.

Just to clarify to avoid wrong conclusions about openSUSE/Novell... :-)

LAN party for children

Oeste Digital Network (ODN), a tech group part of a Portuguese association which I am involved in, some days ago was invited by ANAE (Education and Animation National Association) to join a *particularly* mini LAN party for children between 4 and 7 years old. This LAN party will take three days (Friday to Sunday, and afternoons only obviously) in June, and the goal is to ODN take care of the games. Therefore computer games will be needed!

Since ODN is trying more and more to put proprietary software out of the way we are looking for open source game solutions to run on the 15 laptops that will be available. Digging a while for this "requirement" it seemed to be more difficult than we thought it would be - most of the games aren't suitable for kids and others are not really playable or appealable judging by their point of view. Currently we are looking for three to five games, which at least one should be multiplayer.

So, please if you are aware of good open source games for this range of ages let me know!

P.S.: If you are still wondering why this event is so *particularly* then what would you think if I tell you that it will be hosted in a bus hã!? ;-) Yeah, that's right, in a BUS!!


Linux 2008

Caixa Mágica and Sysbase for the 6th consecutive year are preparing Linux 2008, a National Open Technology Meeting event at the Auditório da Lispólis, Pólo Tecnológio de Lisboa, Telheiras, Portugal, coming up in 15 April.

Among many talks, "Linux in the low cost PC market" by Mandriva CEO François Bancilhnon, and "Debate: Definition of Open Standards and of Interoperability" by many known Portuguese and international people, including Manager Novell Portugal João Batista, would be personally the top moments of the day.

Also, there will be a short presentation about the recent decision that PSA Peugeot Citroën made for have choose SUSE Linux Enterprise for its desktop and server machines - 20,000 desktops plus 2,500 servers.


Unfortunately I will have to miss Linux 2008 due to an exam that I have to do (damn Maths!) ...

If I can't go to FOSDEM... [2nd part]

Some links that I've collected so far:

- http://flickr.com/photos/11426495@N08/tags/fosdem/
- http://flickr.com/photos/giannaros/sets/72157603979849061/
- http://flickr.com/photos/lhirlimann/sets/72157603971804540/
- http://flickr.com/photos/crema/sets/72157603972080068/
- http://flickr.com/photos/isriya/sets/72157603971808570/
- http://flickr.com/photos/m0dlx/sets/72157603966397580/
- http://flickr.com/photos/entre4yeux/sets/72157603971388475/
- http://flickr.com/photos/qmap66/sets/72157603971716588/
- http://amarok.kde.org/blog/uploads/dscf4537.jpg
... than FOSDEM *MUST* come to me!

Dear FOSDEM 2008 attendees,

Unfortunately I couldn't go to FOSDEM 2008. I can't either find much photos available on the Internet nor videos at all. So... I'm begging you to upload some photos and videos from FOSDEM 2008, specially from the openSUSE booth and talks.


Best regards,
Carlos Gonçalves

To be continued...
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