Installation-Notes on OpenSuSE 13.1 (Bottle)
Installation-Notes on OpenSuSE 13.1 (Bottle)
There's strictly no warranty for the correctness of this text. You use any of the information provided here at your own risk. I can not be held responsible, if you damage your system by using any of the information provided her.
OpenSuSE 13.1 (nickname "Bottle") is one of SuSE's last Linux distributions for 32bit systems (probably 13.2 could have been the last). It was first released in November 2013.
I wrote these notes, when I first installed it. Recently my hard disk drive stopped working, so I had to install the distribution again (on a new hard disk drive).
I found my old text really useful. Without it, reinstallation would have taken much longer.
If you don't have a Nvidia-card, skip this part, as it will be boring for you.
Installation of the Nvidia-driver was necessary, because with the default driver 'nouveau', I couldn't get nice graphic-modes when playing videos with mplayer (Xvid-Extension).
The one-click-install on SuSE's page installed the wrong driver!
For this chip (GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a, 03d6, as shown by the "lspci"-command) the driver G02 from this repository is required. Actually, these files had do be downloaded:
nvidia-computeG02-304.131-39.1.i586.rpm nvidia-gfxG02-kmp-desktop-304.131_k3.11.6_4-38.1.i586.rpm x11-video-nvidiaG02-304.131-39.1.i586.rpm x11-video-nvidiaG02-appdata.xml
Installation was then done as follows:
Then reboot. It shouldn't be necessary to mess with "/etc/X11/xorg.conf". When ready, run "nvidia-settings".
Sometimes, the attached USB keyboard and the USB mouse aren't recognized at boot-time. One way to deal with that, is to manually plug the USB devices out and then back in again. But this is annoying and in the long run harmful to the USB ports.
The reason for the misbehaviour may be, that the USB ports don't get enough power at startup, because a feature called "autosuspend" is enabled. If the result of the command
cat /sys/module/usbcore/parameters/autosuspend
is "2", it means, "autosuspend" is enabled. To disable it, make a backup of "/etc/default/grub", then edit this file.
Add to the line with the boot-options "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=" the words:
usbcore.autosuspend=-1
Then run "grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg" to write the options to the boot-files.
After reboot, the result of the "cat"-command above should be "-1", which means, that "autosuspend" is disabled.
Actually, that still didn't solve the problem. Now I use a USB-hub with keyboard and mouse connected. I just connect the hub at runlevel 5, when the display manager's login screen is shown. That may work.
When booting Linux, I like to see old-fashioned boot messages in a simple text-mode. To achieve that in OpenSuSE 13.1, I make a backup of "/etc/default/grub". Then I edit this file as root.
After that, I run "grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg" to recreate the boot-loader.
The grub2-menu to select the operating system to boot is then still shown and functional, but it's displayed in text-mode.
ipv6 is some internet-feature, that may work someday, but today, it just slows down your system.
It's not even that easy to disable, unless you know, where to do it: Make a backup of
/etc/default/grub
and then edit it (as root). Look for the line of your system-boot, for example:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="..."
Add the option "ipv6.disable=1" to that line, so that it looks something like this:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="... ipv6.disable=1"
Of course, there are lots of other options before that in that line (symbolized here by the three points).
If you're ready, do
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
That writes the options to the bootloader (GRUB2). After a reboot, ipv6 should be disabled.
Although the sound-chip was set-up with yast2, many audio-applications (as mplayer) post errors like
Can't open audio device /dev/dsp: No such file
Solution: Put the line "modprobe snd_pcm_oss" (as root) into "/etc/rc.d/boot.local".
If you want to use Youtube on Firefox (version 52 and above), you also have to install "pulseaudio".
As a system beeping noise, I often use "KDE_Beep_Beep.wav", which was part of "KDE 3". It can be found in "kde3base...rpm" of SuSE 10.0. Use Midnight Commander to browse that rpm. The file is down there at "/opt/kde3/share/sounds".
Use the command "/usr/sbin/alsactl store -f normal.state" to save the current mixer settings to a file "normal.state". And "/usr/sbin/alsactl restore -f normal.state" to reload them back from the file.
The version of "checkinstall", that comes with OpenSuSE 13.1, has a bug. It can't create rpms (it says something about not being able to create a directory down in /var/run/.... or so). Fortunately, I found a patch for the bash-script "/usr/sbin/checkinstall", that fixes the problem. It says:
With this patch for checkinstall-1.6.2-0.4.src.rpm;
--- checkinstall.in.orig 2015-05-02 12:34:24.894240253 +0900
+++ checkinstall.in 2015-05-02 12:36:52.561583541 +0900
@@ -2423,7 +2423,7 @@
# Prepare directories to be included in the .spec file
mv ${TMP_DIR}/newfiles ${TMP_DIR}/newfiles.tmp
cat ${TMP_DIR}/newfiles.tmp | while read line; do
- [ -d "${BUILD_DIR}/${line}" -o -L "${BUILD_DIR}/${line}" ] && echo -n "%dir " >> ${TMP_DIR}/newfiles
+ [ -d "${BUILD_DIR}/${line}" ] && echo -n "%dir " >> ${TMP_DIR}/newfiles
echo "\"/${line}\"" >> ${TMP_DIR}/newfiles
done
checkinstall works fine.
I have no idea why, but devices now mount below "/var/run/media/user" instead of in "/media". That's stupid.
Put a symlink "media" on the deep directory into "/home/user", so you don't have to dig that deep:
ln -s /var/run/media/user /home/user/media
Or even better: Make an alias "cdmedia" by putting this line into "/etc/bash.bashrc.local":
alias cdmedia="cd /var/run/media/user;ls"
That's stupid too. On a Linux-forum, someone suggested the command "udisksctl". Here's a bash-script "/usr/local/bin/umountmedia", that umounts exactly one device below "/var/run/media/user". The command expects a "block-device". As far as I can see, CD/DVDs and USB-sticks are such block-devices.
#!/bin/bash
nr=$(ls -1 /var/run/media/user | wc -l)
if test "$nr" -ne "1"; then
echo "Not exactly on device below /var/run/media/user. Aborting."
exit 1;
fi
a=$(mount | grep /var/run/media/user)
mydev=$(echo "$a" | awk -F " " '{print $1}')
udisksctl unmount --block-device "$mydev"
And also "/usr/local/bin/eject" to eject CDs/DVDs as an ordinary user:
#!/bin/bash
if [ $EUID != 0 ]; then
/usr/local/bin/umountmedia
fi
/usr/bin/eject
The "at"-command works like an alarm-clock. You can schedule commands to be executed lateron. Besides the "at"-command, there's also the system-wide "cron"-daemon.
In OpenSuSE 13.1, "at" is not activated by default. To do so, go to the runlevel-editor in yast2 (as root) and click on "at" to enable the "at"-daemon at startup.
Make sure, the ordinary user is in the group "at". Use the user-administration of yast2 for that.
Set the rights for the directories "/var/spool/atjobs" and "/var/spool/atspool", so that the users of the group "at" have write-permission there.
Maybe you need to reboot. After that, "at" should work.
at now +5 min
should execute the command, specified on the following command-line, in 5 minutes.
To use my script "shufflemp3.pl", I compiled mpg321. But it didn't cooperate well with my Perl-script. mpg123 from Packman, worked better (well, actually).
Set the option "noauto" in lines in "/etc/fstab" to prevent devices or partitions (like "/windows/C" for example) from being mounted automatically.
Set the option "users" to enable members of group "users" (i.e. you) to mount and umount certain devices.
I wanted Midnight Commander (mc) to remember its last directory on exit. So I put the line
alias n=". /usr/share/mc/mc-wrapper.sh"
into "/etc/bash.bashrc.local". I want to use mc's option "-b" (black and white, not blue) too, I put that directly into the "mc-wrapper.sh"-file.
When offline, it takes maybe 30 seconds until Midnight Commander (mc) or Firefox start, and there isn't any error-message.
Go to yast2 as root and set the hostname (a host-alias besides "localhost") to the computer's name, shown in "yast2/network/network-settings" (or by the "hostname"-command).
The host-name is then written to the file "/etc/hosts". This seems to fix the problem.
Another command to set the would be "hostnamectl set-hostname [NAME]", by the way.
LXDM is the display manager of LXDE. Among other things, it's responsible for the LXDE-login-screen. Unfortunately, the version, that comes with OpenSuSE 13.1 (lxdm-0.4.1) has a bug: When you log out of the X-server to log in as another user, the screen freezes.
This also has something to do with the systemd-boot-system.
An update of LXDM to lxdm-0.5.3 (from an update-repository for the distribution) seems to fix the problem.
The screen-resolution of the X-server can be set automatically when running LXDM at startup.
Adding the line
Option "metamodes" "1280x720+0+0"
to "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" in the section "Screen" (respectively to "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-screen.conf") did the trick.
Other approaches, that weren't that successful: Editing "/etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf" as root, and addding the line "display-setup-script=xrandr --output default --mode 1280x720". Creating a file "/home/user/.config/autostart/lxrandr-autostart.desktop" with the content:
[Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=LXRandR autostart Comment=Start xrandr with settings done in LXRandR Exec=xrandr --output default --mode 1280x720 OnlyShowIn=LXDE
To get the blue LXDM-default wallpaper, open "System/LXDE Control Center" from the start menu, go to "LXDM Settings" (becoming root) and set "background" to "Standard".
a. Main-Font, Fonts of Title-Bars in LXDE
Using LXDE, the application to set the main font-size of applications is (or should be)
lxappearance
You can also set the size of the fonts of title-bars of applications there.
"lxappearance" modifies the file ".gtkrc-2.0" in your home-directory.
Somehow, the settings of lxappearance can be overwritten by the settings in
/etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/desktop.conf
though (which is probably a bug).
For gtk-3-applications, also check
/home/user/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini
b. Fonts inside a Panel
To set the size of fonts in the panel, edit
/home/user/.config/lxpanel/LXDE/panels/panel
To set the dimensions of the panel itself, right-click on it.
c. Fonts of Desktop-Icons
To set the size of fonts referring to the desktop-icons, right-click on the desktop.
d. Firefox
Firefox should get its main font-size for the menues from lxappearance.
If that's not sufficient, you can edit the file:
/home/user/.mozilla/firefox/[usercode].default/chrome/userChrome.css
and put this code inside it:
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");
* {
font-size: 14pt !important;
font-family: DejaVu Sans !important;
}
The font-size of firefox' contents can be edited inside firefox in:
Edit/Preferences/Content/Fonts
Notice the "adavanced"-button.
Firefox also has a general zoom-function (which wasn't that useful for me though). If you want to try it, point firefox to "about:config", and search for "pix" there. Now you should see the option "layout.css.devPixelsPerPx", which should be "-1.0" (no idea, why it's negative). Setting it to "1.5" will zoom firefox.
Of course, you can zoom content with "Ctrl++" and "Ctrl+-" in firefox.
e. Fonts in xterm
In the terminal, I use the very good font "Terminus", found in "terminus-bitmap-fonts...noarch.rpm". To open the terminal quickly, I defined a keyboard-shortcut "Alt+d" in the file
/home/user/.config/openbox/lxde-rc.xml
The code inside the XML is:
....
<keybind key="A-d">
<action name="Execute">
<command>xterm +sb -font '-*-terminus-*-*-*-*-28-*-*-*-*-*-*-*' -fg white -bg black</command>
</action>
</keybind>
....
Check possible sizes with "xfontsel". 32 seems to be the maximum-size of the Terminus-font at the moment. If that's still too small, you'll have to reduce the screen-resolution in general.
f. Fonts of KDE-applications
Most of the fonts, KDE-applications (like dolphin) use, can be configured with "systemsettings" (part of the package "kdebase4-workspace").
For unknown reason, it seems, the main font of KDE can't be configured there though. Use the program
qtconfig
instead (which is part of the package "libqt4-x11"). There isn't an "Ok"- or "Apply"-button. Use "File/Save" from the menu instead. The program doesn't even tell, where it saves the settings. The file probably is "/home/user/.config/Trolltech.conf".
The file to edit for defining keyboard-shortcuts in LXDE is
/home/user/.config/openbox/lxde-rc.xml
Before you start editing it, make a backup of the original file, as it's in XML, and even if only a single letter in it isn't correct, the whole data is rejected.
Ok, now for the editing: Inside the file, look for a section called
<keyboard>
Notice there are several subsections beginning with "<keybind>" and ending with "</keybind>".
I wanted the following:
So I edited the "<keyboard>"-section, so that it looked like this:
<keyboard>
<keybind key="A-x">
<action name="ToggleMaximizeFull"/>
</keybind>
<keybind key="A-e">
<action name="Execute">
<command>/usr/bin/firefox</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="A-d">
<action name="Execute">
<command>xterm +sb -font '-*-terminus-*-*-*-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-*-*' -fg white -bg black</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="A-m">
<action name="Execute">
<command>thunderbird</command>
</action>
</keybind>
....
</keyboard>
Note: "Mod5-" instead of "A-" seems to bind the "AltGr" key instead of the "Alt" key.
bash itself comes with some useful keyboard-shortcuts in the terminal, for example:
I always want "Alt+w" for "Delete next word forward", but it seems, that's missing.
But you can define it yourself. I got what I wanted by adding the following lines to "/etc/bash.bashrc.local":
bind -r '\ew' bind '"\ew": kill-word'
The first command unbinds whatever was bound to "Alt+w". The next one sets the binding I wanted.
"bind -l" shows, what commands would be possible. With "read" and typing something, you get the keycode you need for the "bind"-command. If ^[ is shown in "read", it has to be translated to \e for the "bind"-command.
This next one's a bit difficult to explain, if you never encountered it: Let's say, you want to copy something to "$HOME/mydir". So you start typing
cp $HOME/
then you press "TAB" and want bash to expand $HOME to "/home/user" automatically, so that you can add "mydir" afterwards. But bash now shows something like this:
cp \$HOME/
and you can't go on. This was the default-behaviour in OpenSuSE 12.1 (not in 10.0 and below though). Fortunately it got corrected again. To get useful behaviour of bash in OpenSuSE 13.1, you have to add the line
shopt -s direxpand
to "/etc/bash.bashrc.local".
To execute commands automatically at LXDE-startup, a socalled ".desktop"-file can be put into the directory:
/home/user/.config/autostart
Its content could look for example like this:
[Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=Some name here Comment=Doing this and that at LXDE-startup Exec=yourcommand -option1 -option2 OnlyShowIn=LXDE
Shorter and simpler commands can be put into the file:
/home/def/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart
Firefox 65.0.2 (32 bit) is a rather good version for OpenSuSE 13.1.
The Firefox-AddOn "JavaScript Switcher (by Suraj Jain)" places a small icon on the right side of the navigation bar, with which JavaScript can be switched on and off with a single click.
A similar AddOn was formerly called "QuickJS 1.1".
Some versions of Firefox seem to neglect the system's menu-colors. That is, when the menu-font is black, and you select an item, there's no background-color to the selected item, and the foreground-color is white, so you can't see anything.
Somehow, Firefox overwrites the system's color-settings with its own ones.
To make it respect the system-colors, edit the file:
/home/user/.mozilla/firefox/[usercode].default/chrome/userChrome.css
and append to it:
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");
menu, menuitem {
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}
(The "@namespace"-line needs to be inside the file only once.)
After you restart Firefox, the menu and its items are very tight, but at least the problem with the colors is solved.
Recent versions of Firefox keep on displaying annoying messages about newer Firefox versions being available, while there even isn't an option any more to prevent Firefox from searching for updates at all.
To switch off updates still (in for example Firefox 92.0), become 'root' and go to "/usr/lib/firefox" (where Firefox is installed).
Create a directory called "distribution" there.
Enter it and create a file "policies.json" with the following content:
{
"policies": {
"DisableAppUpdate": true
}
}
Restart Firefox. That finally disables automatic updates. Notice, that in "about:preferences", you get messages
The browser is managed by your organisation.
and
Updates have been deactivated by your system-administrator.
(or something similar) now.
Another method, to just stop the messages, was: Go to "about:config" and set "app.update.doorhanger" to "false". But that may be deprecated.
Get "libflashplayer.so" from Adobe. It needs to be copied into the directory "/home/user/.mozilla/plugins", which has to be created first. Then, firefox recognizes it without further installation. Otherwise, it doesn't recognise it at all.
I don't like pdfs (of maybe unknown size) opening inside a browser. I want to download them and view them with kpdf and such.
So,in Firefox 44, I needed to disable the "pdf.JS"-stuff. I just had to go to
about:config
and set the option "pdfjs.disabled" to "true".
In KDE3, there was the great email-program "kmail". Unfortunately, it got totally messed up in KDE4. Shame on the developers. So, today Mozilla Thunderbird's the better alternative.
Some useful options for configuration are a bit hidden though:
Recently, I couldn't zoom text in or out with "Ctrl++"/"Ctrl+-" inside the "compose message"-window. It worked again, when I disabled the option "zoom only text" in "View/Zoom" in the compose-window's menus.
It seems, this option toggles, if images are zoomed too.
In LibreOffice, in "Extras/Options/LibreOffice/View", there's an option "Use system-font for the GUI". That should be checked. Then, the packages
libreoffice-kde4...rpm libreoffice-gnome...rpm
should be installed, especially the second one. Otherwise, LibreOffice can't make use of the Gtk-system-font. The font (type and size) has to be set in "systemsettings", the KDE-config-tool, which is part of
kdebase4-workspace
Make sure, the package
kde-gtk-config
is installed. Then, and only then, there's a page for gtk-options in "systemsettings/Appearance of Applications/GTK". That's where you set the menu-font for LibreOffice.
After that, you can fine-tune the appearance in "LibreOffice/Extras/Options/LibreOffice/View". You can scale the GUI a little there.
To speed up LibreOffice, you can set some options in "Extras/Options/LibreOffice/Memory":
Think about the quickstart-option (if it's on that page too). It loads parts of LibreOffice at system-boot. I'm not sure, if I want that. Maybe not.
Although OpenSuSE 13.1 mainly uses KDE4, it is also possible to install and run KDE3-programs with it such as "kpdf".
To set the font sizes of the KDE3-applications (without using the old "kcontrol"), sections like these can be added to the file "/home/user/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals":
[General] XftAntialias=true XftHintStyle=hintmedium XftSubPixel=none desktopFont=Sans Serif,18,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0 fixed=Monospace,18,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0 font=Sans Serif,18,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0 menuFont=Sans Serif,18,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0 smallestReadableFont=Sans Serif,8,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0 toolBarFont=Sans Serif,18,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0 [WM] activeFont=Sans Serif,12,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0
Similar to older versions of SuSE Linux, it is possible to create a "data safe", a password secured container file for sensible data. To set up such a container on OpenSuSE 13.1, you'd do the following as root. At first, it is a bit difficult to understand how this is done, so I explain each command one by one:
modprobe cryptoloop
mkdir -p /home/user/safe
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/home/user/cryptfile bs=1024 count=200000
losetup /dev/loop0 /home/user/cryptfile
cryptsetup --hash sha512 --cipher twofish-cbc-plain --key-size 256 create secret_img /dev/loop0
mke2fs -j /dev/mapper/secret_img
mount /dev/mapper/secret_img /home/user/safe
If you want to use such a volume later, you have to take some of the steps above again. But you can just put them into a script this time. To mount the data safe:
#!/bin/bash modprobe cryptoloop losetup /dev/loop0 /home/user/cryptfile cryptsetup --hash sha512 --cipher twofish-cbc-plain --key-size 256 create secret_img /dev/loop0 mount /dev/mapper/secret_img /home/user/safe
And to umount it again:
#!/bin/bash umount /home/user/safe cryptsetup close /dev/mapper/secret_img losetup -d /dev/loop0
As this can only be done as root, you'd have to setup sudo for ordinary users accordingly.
When I want to play a multimedia-file in a directory from the terminal, I don't want to have to think about which player to use and which command to enter for that specific file. That's why I wrote the small script "m", which I copied to "/usr/local/bin".
I can throw the names of lots of files at it, and there's a good chance, it plays them for me, if they're media-files.
First, it tries to identify the file by its suffix (like ".flv" for example), then by comparing the result of a check with the file-command.
Here's my Perl-version of the script:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
# m - Play multimedia-file(s)
sub play {
print "Playing '$_[1]'.\n";
system("$_[0] \"$_[1]\"");
}
if (! @ARGV) {
print "\nNope.\n\n";
exit 1;
}
my $mpl = "mplayer -af volnorm";
my $mplfs = "mplayer -fs -af volnorm";
my $m321 = "mpg321 -q";
my %sufs = ("flv" => "ffplay -x 1024 -y 768",
"flv.part" => "ffplay -x 1024 -y 768",
"ogg" => "ogg123");
my %checks = ("WAVE" => "aplay -q",
"MP3" => $m321,
"layer" => $m321,
"AVI" => $mplfs,
"Microsoft ASF" => $mplfs,
"Apple QuickTime movie" => $mplfs,
"tracker" => "modplugplay",
"SID" => "sidplay2",
"MIDI" => "timidity 1>/dev/null");
foreach my $i (@ARGV) {
if (! -f $i) {
print "'$i' not suitable (non-existent or directory).\n";
next;
}
my $nextfile = 0;
foreach my $u (keys(%sufs)) {
if ($i =~ /\Q$u\E$/) {
play($sufs{$u}, $i);
$nextfile = 1;
last;
}
}
if ($nextfile) { next; }
my $fstr = `file $i`;
foreach my $u (keys(%checks)) {
if ($fstr =~ /\Q$u\E/) {
play($checks{$u}, $i);
$nextfile = 1;
last;
}
}
if ($nextfile) { next; }
# Special cases:
if($fstr =~ /MPEG/) {
play($mplfs, $i);
next;
}
if($fstr =~ /data/ && $i =~ /sid$/) {
play("sidplay2", $i);
next;
}
print "Format of '$i' not recognized.\n";
}
I got some results with "m *" in a directory for example.
"/etc/rc.d/boot.local":
modprobe snd_pcm_oss modprobe cryptoloop modprobe db9_new dev=1,9
"/etc/bash.bashrc.local":
shopt -s direxpand bind -r '\ed' bind -r '\ew' bind '"\ew": kill-word' HM="/home/user" alias am="alsamixer" alias mozilla="/usr/bin/firefox"
"/etc/default/grub":
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="openSUSE 13.1" GRUB_DEFAULT=saved GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=8 GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=" resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-....... ipv6.disable=1 showopts nomodeset nouveau.modeset=0" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_RECOVERY="showopts apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 nomodeset x11failsafe" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" GRUB_GFXMODE=text GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false GRUB_THEME= GRUB_BACKGROUND=
The hard disk drive (" resume=/dev/disk/by-id/...") has to be defined properly. When ready, the boot-loader can be recreated with "grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg". But be careful: If there are wrong settings, the system won't boot any more.
The db9-kernel-module is a Linux-driver for a weird joystick-interface for a parallel-port. With it, you can connect a digital joystick, used for ancient homecomputers like Amiga 500, Atari 800 XL or Sinclair ZX Spectrum, to a parallel-port of a PC (although many modern PCs don't even have a parallel-port any more).
Some of these interfaces enable you to connect two digital joysticks to one parallel-port (like the Amiga, C64 or Atari 800 XL usually had two joystick-ports, so there were games for two players at once). The following text describes how to fix a bug in the db9-kernel-module to make two joysticks work.
Get db9.c from "/usr/src/linux-3.11.6-4/drivers/input/joystick/db9.c", it's part of "kernel-source...rpm".
After the line
input_sync(dev);
add the line
input_sync(dev2);
Call the new file db9_new.c, copy it somewhere, put a "Makefile" there, which looks like this:
obj-m := db9_new.o KDIR := /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build PWD := $(shell pwd) default: $(MAKE) -C $(KDIR) SUBDIRS=$(PWD) modules
Build as root with "make", copy "db9_new.ko" to "/lib/modules/3.11.6-4-desktop/kernel/drivers/input/joystick/". Then execute
depmod
Insert db9_new instead of db9:
modprobe db9_new dev=1,9
See the documentation for details on the values for "dev=".
1. fuse (ZX Spectrum): "/home/user/.fuserc":
<graphicsfilter>paltv3x</graphicsfilter>"
2. fs-uae (Amiga):
/home/user/.config/fs-uae /home/user/.config/fs-uae-launcher
File "base-dir", containing the name of the "FS-UAE"-directory.
There is a protection mechanism, when writing to disk images. If you want to write to disk images, the option
writable_floppy_images = 1
has to be set in the individual configuration.
3. mame (Arcade): "/etc/mame/mame.ini":
video soft keepaspect 1
The last one ("keepaspect 1") is rather important.
In mame, you can set the sound volume using the "^"-key (the key above the tabulator-key).
4. vice (C64): "/home/user/.config/vice/sdl-vicerc":
AspectRatio="1,000000" JoyPort1Device=1 JoyPort2Device=1 JoyDevice1=4 JoyDevice2=4
That's for my Atari-db9-type joysticks (connected to parallel port).
Use
x64 -VICIIfull disk.d64
to run in fullscreen-mode. See this page for more options.
When using vice, there are two key-combinations to be aware of:
Inside the emulation, there are some C64-specific key-combinations:
When compiling vice from source, don't worry about "./configure" stating, that there isn't support for "Linux joysticks" or "USB-joysticks": Joystick-support is handled by the SDL-library.
Here are the software-repositories (yast2/Software/Software-Repositories) I used for OpenSuSE 13.1. Some of them may have been closed in the meantime:
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.1/repo/oss/ http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.1/repo/non-oss/ http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/13.1/repo/oss/ http://download.opensuse.org/debug/distribution/13.1/repo/oss/ http://download.opensuse.org/debug/update/13.1/ http://download.opensuse.org/debug/update/13.1-non-oss/ http://download.opensuse.org/update/13.1/ http://download.opensuse.org/update/13.1-non-oss/ http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/lxde/openSUSE_13.1/ http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE3/openSUSE_13.1/ http://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/13.1/ http://download.videolan.org/pub/SuSE/13.1/ http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_13.1/