openSUSE 12.2 Release Notes

For Detailed Installation Information

For detailed installation information, see the "openSUSE Documentation" referenced below.

openSUSE Documentation

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• In Start-Up, find step-by-step installation instructions, as well as introductions to the KDE and Gnome desktops and to the LibreOffice suite. Also covered are basic administration topics such as deployment and software management and an introduction to the bash shell.

• Reference covers administration, and system configuration in detail and explains how to set up various network services.

• The Security Guide introduces basic concepts of system security, covering both local and network security aspects.

• The System Analysis and Tuning Guide helps with problem detection, resolution and optimization.

• Virtualization with KVM offers an introduction to setting up and managing virtualization with KVM, libvirt and QEMU tools.

Windows Domain Logon with KDM

The SUSE KDM theme does not allow Windows Domain logons.

To work around this issue, set DISPLAYMANAGER_KDM_THEME to an empty string in /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager to use the default KDM theme:

DISPLAYMANAGER_KDM_THEME=""

Mounting Encrypted Partitions Using systemd

If encrypted partitions are not automatically mounted when using systemd, the noauto flag in /etc/fstab for these partitions could be the cause. Replacing this flag with nofail will fix it. For instance, change the following line:

/dev/mapper/cr_sda3  /home   ext4    acl,user_xattr,noauto 0 2

to

/dev/mapper/cr_sda3  /home   ext4    acl,user_xattr,nofail 0 2

Initializing Graphics with KMS (Kernel Mode Setting)

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With openSUSE 11.3 we switched to KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) for Intel, ATI and NVIDIA graphics, which now is our default. If you encounter problems with the KMS driver support (intel, radeon, nouveau), disable KMS by adding nomodeset to the kernel boot command line. To set this permanently, add it to the kernel command line in /boot/grub/menu.lst. This option makes sure the appropriate kernel module (intel, radeon, nouveau) is loaded with modeset=0 in initrd, i.e. KMS is disabled.

In the rare cases when loading the DRM module from initrd is a general problem and unrelated to KMS, it is even possible to disable loading of the DRM module in initrd completely. For this set the NO_KMS_IN_INITRD sysconfig variable to yes via YAST, which then recreates initrd afterwards. Reboot your machine.

On Intel without KMS the Xserver falls back to the fbdev driver (the intel driver only supports KMS); alternatively, for legacy GPUs from Intel the "intellegacy" driver (xorg-x11-driver-video-intel-legacy package) is available, which still supports UMS (User Mode Setting). To use it, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf and change the driver entry to intellegacy.

On ATI for current GPUs it falls back to radeonhd. On NVIDIA without KMS the nv driver is used (the nouveau driver supports only KMS). Note, newer ATI and NVIDIA GPUs are falling back to fbdev, if you specify the nomodeset kernel boot parameter.

Radeon HDMI Sound Output Being Disabled

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Due to problems on some hardware HDMI sound output has been disabled by default on the radeon driver, which is the default driver for AMD/ATI graphics cards.

It can be re-enabled by adding radeon.audio=1 as a kernel parameter. In YaST, go to System -> Boot Loader, then click Edit on the default entry, and add the following to the end of 'Optional Kernel Command Line Parameter':

radeon.audio=1

Then reboot to apply the change.

Alternatively, users can install the proprietary driver from AMD. For more information, see http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:ATI_drivers.

Booting with systemd or sysvinit

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By default, openSUSE now boots using systemd. In case of trouble, you can switch back to the old way using sysvinit by pressing the F5 key on the boot.

If you want to switch to sysvinit permanently, install the sysvinit-init package. To switch back to systemd, reinstall the systemd-sysvinit package.

systemd: Supplying Service Start-up Parameters

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systemctl only supports "standard" parameters (see http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Incompatibilities).

You can bypass this new behavior by calling the start-up script directly, for example:

cd /etc/init.d
./apache2 <your_parameters>

systemd: System Shutdown

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To halt and poweroff the system when using systemd, issue halt -p or shutdown -h now on the command-line or use the shutdown button provided by your desktop environment.

Note: A plain halt will not shutdown the system properly.

systemd: Making Use of tmpfs: /run, /var/run, /media, etc.

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systemd mounts several directories that are meant to contain volatile data only, as tmpfs filesystems: /run, /var/run, /var/lock, and /media are those directories. For background information, see http://lwn.net/Articles/436012/.

Note: Do not store files that are meant to survive a reboot, in /run, /var/run, etc.

systemd: Cleaning Directories (/tmp and /var/tmp)

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systemd maintains directories as specified in the tmpfiles.d directories and in /lib/systemd/system/systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer. For more information, see the tmpfiles.d manpage.

By default, systemd cleans tmp directories daily as configured in /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf:

d /tmp 1777 root root 10d
d /var/tmp 1777 root root 30d

Note: systemd does not honor sysconfig variables in /etc/sysconfig/cron such as TMP_DIRS_TO_CLEAR.