OpenSuSE 12.1 quirks

There are some issues that I want to track.

This post will keep an updated list.

• When using VMware player 4.0.1 with a VM (XP) that is sitting on a NTFS filesystem, the system will be very unresponsive after a few minutes.
  Solution: When you move the VM to an EXT4 partition, everything works.
• XBMC shows green dots or static during playback.
  Solution: Change render method from "auto" to "Basic Shaders" or "Software"
• XBMC crashes at startup when using Gnome Shell.
  Solution: Start in windowed mode and switch to fullscreen.
• When running from SSD the system freezes for a few seconds during heavy I/O (when copying files between SSD folders). When the I/O operation is finished, everything returns back to normal.
  Disabling Gnome Shell (and forcing fallback mode) seems to resolve this problem.
  Solution: set io scheduler to "noop" and not "cfq"
  also, add these options to your ext4 mount options for root volume in  /etc/fstab: noatime,discard
• The crypttab "timeout" option does not work.
  Solution: Put your options in the 4th column and thus replace the second "none" keyword.
  before: encr_dev_name encryp_dev_disk none none
  after:    encr_dev_name encryp_dev_disk none luks,timeout=5
  see... very easy
• XFCE does not allow scanning when installing HP device using HPLIB
  solution: install the Xsane package!

TESTDISK: repair partition table

In the previous post I talked about my messed up partition table.
Just a few minutes later I restored everything by booting the SystemRescueCd and using testdisk.

Followed these steps...

GRUB: boot manually when messing up linux partition

I have a multiboot PC (XP+OpenSuSE) and messed up the linux partition by making a bad choice in the windows disk management.
So after restart, there was no grub menu, just a grub prompt...
To be able to boot windows (which is the first partition in my case) I followed these steps

Load another boot loader to boot unsupported operating systems

If you want to boot an unsupported operating system (e.g. Windows 95), chain-load a boot loader for the operating system. Normally, the boot loader is embedded in the boot sector of the partition on which the operating system is installed.

1. Set GRUB's root device to the partition by the command @command{rootnoverify} (see section rootnoverify):

   grub> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
   

2. Set the active flag in the partition by the command @command{makeactive}(5) (see section makeactive):

   grub> makeactive
   

3. Load the boot loader by the command @command{chainloader} (see section chainloader):

   grub> chainloader +1
   

   `+1' indicates that GRUB should read one sector from the start of the partition. The complete description about this syntax can be found in section How to specify block lists.
4. Run the command @command{boot} (see section boot).

However, DOS and Windows have some deficiencies, so you might have to use more complicated instructions. See section DOS/Windows, for more information.

OpenSuSE 12.1 on a Dell D630

Everything just works!

No hardware troubles, all multimedia keys respond, hibernate OK, switching to external display, Bluetooth, audio, WI-FI,...

I used the DVD, 64-bit version and have an Intel Graphics Chipset and 2GB of RAM.
Gnome 3.2 is very nice, especially when you are a Google user.
The online accounts feature is very good! You should give it a try.