From openFATE’s launch in January ‘09 the addition of a new feature was limited to openSUSE members. Due and thanks to several requests out of the openSUSE community we changed this and are happy to announce today that openFATE now allows feature requests for non-members as well. This will lower the bar again to participate directly in the project and in the development of openSUSE, openSUSE Build Service and openFATE itself.
We’re looking forward to receive more qualified feature requests to make our openSUSE distribution and the project itself fit your needs better from day to day. To use openFATE please check first here

Have a lot of fun!

Good news, everybody! iFolder client packages are now available for openSUSE 11.1 from the openSUSE update repositories. This means you can install iFolder client on openSUSE 11.1 using YaST or zypper, without any modifications to your installed system.

Like openSUSE, iFolder is an open source project sponsored by Novell. iFolder is a simple and secure storage solution that can make syncing and sharing files easy. You can back up, access, and manage your personal files from anywhere, at any time. Once you have installed iFolder, you simply save your files locally and iFolder automatically updates the files on a network server and delivers them to the other machines you use.

To install iFolder, just fire up YaST’s Software Manager and search for “ifolder3″, or open a terminal and type the following:

sudo zypper ref

sudo zypper in ifolder3

The iFolder server is available in the openSUSE Build Service. Just search for “ifolder3-enterprise” at software.opensuse.org/search.

For more information on iFolder, see the iFolder site. Want to run an iFolder server without having to set up a server from scratch? Stephen Shaw, Mario Carrión, and Andrés G. Aragoneses created a openSUSE-based server appliance using SUSE Studio. Just download the VMware image and fire it up in VMware or VirtualBox.

To get involved with iFolder, see the how to contribute doc and join real-time discussions in the #ifolder channel on Freenode.

The next openSUSE Project meeting will take place Wednesday July 1 at 16:00 UTC. See all time zones on the Fixed Time World Clock. As always, the meeting will be held in IRC on the #opensuse-project channel on Freenode.

Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/Project_Meeting_2009-07-01

Please add topics as soon as possible. Also, if you have questions for the meeting, but can’t attend (we know that the meeting times can’t work for everyone) please add them to the agenda as well.

For more on IRC meetings, see: http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About.

As always, we meet in #opensuse-project on Freenode. Fire up your favorite IRC client and head over to #opensuse-project.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at irchelp.org. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE. For more information on Freenode, see http://freenode.net/.

Wondering what meeting times are? Check the openSUSE Meetings page. All project meetings and team meetings should be listed there.

The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 3. Images are ready for download and testing. This release includes the 2.6.30 Linux kernel, KDE 4.3 beta 2, GNOME 2.27.2, OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 Alpha, and more!

This is a Milestone Release, one of several leading up to the 11.2 release in November. It may not be suitable for production systems, but should be stable enough for testing.

Screenshots of the milestone releases and factory development can be found (or added) on the wiki.

Changes Since openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 2

A lot has changed since the M2 release, and many packages have been updated for 11.2 M3. Some of the major changes in this release include:

• Linux kernel 2.6.30
• GNOME 2.27.2
• KDE 4.3 beta 2
• PulseAudio 0.9.15
• Konversation 1.2 Alpha 3
• VirtualBox 2.2.4
• Wine 1.1.23
• OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 Alpha

See the openSUSE Wiki for additional changes in 11.2 Milestone 3. You can see the latest packages in Factory on DistroWatch, which tracks 203 major packages in openSUSE.

Getting Milestone 3

The latest development versions are available from http://software.opensuse.org/developer/. Choose from x86 or x86-64 install DVDs or the KDE and GNOME Live CDs.

Testing

Help us make openSUSE 11.2 the best release yet! Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a milestone release, and is not suitable for use on production systems.

Though many openSUSE users can and do use the Factory distribution and/or testing releases for day-to-day work we want to stress that it’s entirely possible that you will encounter serious bugs. See openSUSE.org/Testing for more information on Testing. To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the #openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.

Short but sweet post here: Getting a few numbers on community growth for the openSUSE Day introduction at LinuxTag, I noticed that the openSUSE Forums have now passed 30,000 users!

That’s pretty amazing considering that we started the merged forums on June 10, 2008. In about one year’s time, we’ve seen more than 30,000 people sign up for the forums.

Congrats to everyone who works on the forums, and everyone in the community who has participated!

openSUSE development is now even more open than before. Factory development is changing, and we’re making it easier for contributors to take responsibility for packages and to contribute directly to openSUSE. This means contributors will be able to be directly responsible for packages, without having to go through a Novell employee to make changes.

Factory development is being split into devel projects organized by topic areas, such as KDE, GNOME, Education, Java, and so on. Devel projects are responsible for sets of packages and will be able to organize themselves rather than following a top-down model of management.

The idea is to allow teams to be self-organizing and for all contributors to have equal footing in terms of being able to contribute to openSUSE Factory.

To get started, the current Novell and openSUSE package maintainers will be working with each other to define responsibility within the devel projects and how the team will work together. As time goes on, they will integrate new maintainers into the teams and commit privileges will be based on merit and not whether a person is employed by Novell.

How to Get Started

If you’re new to working with Factory and the openSUSE Build Service, you can start with the Factory Packaging page on the openSUSE Wiki. This explains the Factory workflow, how to check out packages and submit changes, how to create new devel projects, and so on.

Have questions or need help getting started? There are plenty of openSUSE Factory contributors who’d be happy to answer questions and help you get started. To learn more, join the opensuse-factory mailing list, or get real-time help in the #opensuse-factory IRC channel on Freenode.

The policy changes that have been made with Factory are another step in making openSUSE a more independent project, and allowing all contributors to take equal responsibility. As Factory development and devel teams evolve, we hope to see more contributors taking a lead role in leading openSUSE development and shaping the openSUSE distro. Factory is open!

The next openSUSE Project meeting will take place Wednesday June 17th at 12:00 UTC. See all time zones on the Fixed Time World Clock. As always, the meeting will be held in IRC on the #opensuse-project channel on Freenode.

Please add your topics to the meeting wiki page at:

http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/Project_Meeting_2009-06-17

Please add topics as soon as possible. Also, if you have questions for the meeting, but can’t attend (we know that the meeting times can’t work for everyone) please add them to the agenda as well.

For more on IRC meetings, see: http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/About.

As always, we meet in #opensuse-project on Freenode. Fire up your favorite IRC client and head over to #opensuse-project.

Not familiar with IRC? A good overview can be found at irchelp.org. This site is not affiliated with openSUSE. For more information on Freenode, see http://freenode.net/.

Wondering what meeting times are? Check the openSUSE Meetings page. All project meetings and team meetings should be listed there.

We do a number of software and hardware updates this week for our openSUSE servers. That means that some services will not be available for some time.

Tuesday 10:00 UTC
Maintenance of our content delivery infrastructure for about 1 hour. That means the following service will not be available:

• download.opensuse.org
• stage.opensuse.org

Wednesday 12:00 UTC
Maintenance of our Build Service infrastructure for about 1 hour. That means the following service will not be available:

• software.opensuse.org
• build.opensuse.org
• api.opensuse.org
• users.opensuse.org

Thursday
We will update the Factory development projects according to the new discussed list. So Build Service packages should expect a high load on the system, it will most likely not really usable at this day.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but lets hope that a larger and stronger infrastructure will offer the services to you afterwards

If you’re in, around, or near Clemson, South Carolina this weekend don’t miss the SouthEast LinuxFest at Clemson University! The openSUSE Project will be exhibiting at the ‘fest and giving away plenty of openSUSE DVDs, stickers, and a few other assorted goodies for openSUSE enthusiasts and contributors.

Members of the openSUSE Education project will also be at the openSUSE booth to talk about open source and education, and showing off the education project’s work, so be sure to stop by and learn all about what the openSUSE-Edu team is doing to promote open source and Linux as a cost-effective alternative for educational institutions.

The SouthEast LinuxFest has free and paid registrations (supporters get a SouthEast LinuxFest t-shirt to show their support for the event) and there’s plenty of great talks and exhibits for openSUSE enthusiasts. See you in South Carolina!

The iFolder project will be having its monthly meeting tomorrow, June 9th, at 14:00 UTC. The meeting will be held in the #ifolder channel on Freenode.

iFolder is a simple, secure storage solution that helps enhance collaboration and improve productivity. The iFolder client is cross-platform and runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. The iFolder server that is used to sync and store files runs on Linux. A release for openSUSE 11.1 is due this month, and will be part of the discussion for the iFolder meeting tomorrow.

The agenda for tomorrow’s meeting, so far:

• Project engineering status
• Website update
• openSUSE Build Service update
• Documentation (help needed)
• Close bugs (help needed)

If you’re interested in iFolder, please be sure to attend. If you have questions about iFolder, contact iFolder Community Manager Brent McConnell or ask in the #ifolder channel on Freenode.