openSUSE 12.1 has been released a few weeks ago. A major new technology we introduce in this release is ownCloud, which we ship in a separate repository. ownCloud is a web application which lets you set up your own cloud – a place for you data where you can share it with others or use it over multiple devices. As YOU will own the data, it’s great from a privacy and security point of view.

However, setting up ownCloud, while not particularly complicated, is still vastly more difficult than navigating to a website which offers you convenient ways of giving them your personal data. If the convenience offered by companies like Dropbox, Canonical or Facebook is so much greater than what is offered by technologies which protect your freedom, you don’t really have a choice as common user.

openSUSE 12.1 offers a solution: mirall. While this tool has not yet solved all problems in the world, it makes deploying your ownCloud as easy as a few clicks and makes your files available for you off-line (a feature ownCloud itself lacks). Read on to learn what mirall has in store for openSUSE users!
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Respecting users is a priority to the openSUSE Project so when something does not work the way it should be, taking a step back is more preferable than delivering something that is not ready yet. For that reason yesterday afternoon Greg K.H. announced to the openSUSE-factory mailing list that systemd is being removed from Tumbleweed so that users won’t have a problem with it. That way it will allow developers to spend more time on working on it in order to have systemd ready for the upcoming 12.1 instead of chasing problems that are specific to Tumbleweed.

Here is the e-mail from Greg K.H. announcing the removal of systemd from Tumbleweed:

Due to a number of inter dependencies on packages that are not ready for
Tumbleweed, and other interactions with the system that are causing
problems for some users, I’m going to remove systemd from Tumbleweed
today to allow the developers to spend more time on getting it stable
for Factory and 12.1 instead of having to chase down problems that are
specific to Tumbleweed only.

So if you have installed systemd in Tumbleweed, I suggest you now remove
it with a simple:
zypper rm systemd

thanks,

greg k-h

The ‘cloud’ has been a buzzword for quite a while. While some are still rather cynical towards the concept, products like mobile phones with Android have shown the value of putting your data in that huge, amorphous network of servers somewhere. Apple recently introduced their new cloud service and Microsoft has their cloud too. So with the other major players talking cloudy, what does Linux have?

Variety

Let’s define Cloud technology as ‘related to putting data online & sharing among devices’ which is a reasonable definition for our purposes. There is a huge number of technologies connecting openSUSE users to online services. However there is a distinction to be made between commercial or proprietary operating systems and ours. We don’t create a vendor lock-in scenario because we focus on tools that freely connect you to your choice of publicly available services. This is a key distinction because we’re not owning or controlling the cloud that you place your data in. You, the user, get to decide the place where it best fits your needs and comfort level. Yesterday we highlighted integration in our every day applications. Today we focus on file syncing services and especially the cool Free Software project ownCloud! (more…)

The ‘cloud’ has been a buzzword for quite a while. While some are still rather cynical towards the concept, products like mobile phones with Android have shown the value of putting your data in that huge, amorphous network of servers somewhere. Apple recently introduced their new cloud service and Microsoft has their cloud too. So with the other major players talking cloudy, what does Linux have?

Variety

Let’s define Cloud technology as ‘related to putting data online & sharing among devices’ which is a reasonable definition for our purposes. There is a huge number of technologies connecting openSUSE users to online services. However there is a distinction to be made between commercial or proprietary operating systems and ours. We don’t create a vendor lock-in scenario because we focus on tools that freely connect you to your choice of publicly available services. This is a key distinction because we’re not owning or controlling the cloud that you place your data in. You, the user, get to decide the place where it best fits your needs and comfort level. Today and tomorrow we will highlight some of them here, starting with integration in our every day applications. (more…)

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.