Microsoft Office 2010 on openSUSE 12.3 64bit

Yes people, this really does work (and very well).

If you’re installing on openSUSE 12.2:

1. Install the latest wine from the community repo.
sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Emulators:/Wine/openSUSE_12.2/ wine
sudo zypper ref
sudo zypper dup -r wine
sudo zypper in wine

If you’re installing on openSUSE 12.3:

1. Just install wine:
sudo zypper in wine

2. Install office
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.office wine /setup/directory/setup.exe

3. The office apps should now be in your menu, if not… (change OUTLOOK.EXE for whatever you’re opening)
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.office wine ~/.office/drive_c/Program\ Files/Microsoft\ Office/Office14/OUTLOOK.EXE &

If you need to configure Outlook:
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.office wine control
Click on Mail. The rest is the same as if you were configuring on Windows.

Here are some more specifics for actually installing Office: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=17336
Only the 32-bit installer works. I happen to be using MS Office 2010 Professional Plus.

Netflix on openSUSE 12.2 linux using wine + firefox + silverlight 4

With the big news that someone got netflix working using wine + firefox + silverlight, I decided to give it a shot on openSUSE 12.2.
There’s no rpm package available for this yet (though I’m thinking about making one, but don’t really have the time).

This is what I did to get it working:

1. Install the latest wine from the community repo:
sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Emulators:/Wine/openSUSE_12.2/ wine
sudo zypper ref
sudo zypper dup -r wine
sudo zypper in wine

2. Install mstcore fonts (thanks Tyler):
sudo zypper in fetchmsttfonts

3. Install firefox version 14.0.1:
wget -O Firefox-14.0.1.exe http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/14.0.1/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%2014.0.1.exe
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.netflix wine Firefox-14.0.1.exe

4. Install Silverlight version 4:
wget -O Silverlight-4.exe http://silverlight.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/6/A/1/6A13C54D-3F35-4082-977A-27F30ECE0F34/10329.00/runtime/Silverlight.exe
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.netflix wine Silverlight-4.exe /q

5. Watch Netflix!
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.netflix wine "C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe" http://netflix.com/

DO NOT use the latest versions of Firefox and Silverlight! They are broken in wine!

Install Spotify (natively) on openSUSE 12.2

Looks like we don’t have to pay for an account anymore! Too bad they don’t have an rpm built yet but it looks like a Fedora rpm is at least on the way.

1. Install dependencies
zypper in libcryptopp-5_6_1-0 rpm-build alien

2. Get the debian package from Spotify
wget http://repository.spotify.com/pool/non-free/s/spotify/spotify-client_0.8.4.103.g9cb177b.260-1_amd64.deb

3. Convert the debian to an rpm
sudo alien -r spotify-client_0.8.4.103.g9cb177b.260-1_amd64.deb

4. Install the rpm
sudo zypper in spotify-client-0.8.4.103.g9cb177b.260-2.x86_64.rpm

5. Link dependencies
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libnss3.so /usr/lib64/libnss3.so.1d
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libnssutil3.so /usr/lib64/libnssutil3.so.1d
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libsmime3.so /usr/lib64/libsmime3.so.1d
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libplc4.so /usr/lib64/libplc4.so.0d
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libnspr4.so /usr/lib64/libnspr4.so.0d

6. Run Spotify!
spotify&

Enjoy!

Skype on 64-bit openSUSE 12.1

In case anyone is looking and stumbles upon this, these are the dependencies you need to install in order to run Skype on 64-bit openSUSE 12.1:
xorg-x11-libXv-32bit
libqt4-32bit
libqt4-x11-32bit
libpng12-0-32bit

Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN Wireless troubles in openSUSE 12.1

The wireless firmware for my Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN Wireless card (Lenovo T410) kicks me off the internet about every 5 minutes. Here’s how I fixed it:

1. Backup /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode  sudo mv /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode.old
2. Download the openSUSE 11.4 firmware here.
3. Extract the rpm.
4. Move iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode inside the rpm (in ./lib/firmware/iwlwifi-6000-4.ucode) to /lib/firmware/
5. Reboot
6. Enjoy!

Basically what you just did was download the old (working) firmware for the device, and replaced it with the new firmware (which doesn’t work).

P.S. As of this posting, downloading the latest firmware from Intel does not fix the problem (I tried). It’s the same version of firmware that ships with openSUSE 12.1.

Using the Google API on Linux

MonoDevelop 2.4

Mono 2.8.1

So, I had trouble getting the Google API to work in MonoDevelop, so I thought I’d show you how I did it. I got this from google code:

Setting up your environment

1. Download the latest ZIP file release of the client library from http://code.google.com/p/google-gdata/downloads/list
2. Extract to a local directory (e.g. “/scratch/gdata.NET”)
3. Use your distribution’s package management to install Mono. Alternatively, you can download it from http://www.mono-project.com.
4. In some distributions you have to make sure that the nunit.framework.dll file is properly linked into the mono library. If mono was installed to “/usr/lib/mono”, then ensure that there are symbolic links in “/usr/lib/mono/1.0″ and “/usr/lib/mono/2.0″ for nunit.framework.dll (which should be installed in “/usr/lib/mono/gac/nunit.framework/<someversionstring>/nunit.framework.dll”).

Compiling and running samples

1. Assuming you installed the client library to “/scratch/gdata.NET”, change to the “/scratch/gdata.NET/clients/cs” directory.
2. Edit the Makefile depending on what version of .NET you wish to use. For .NET 1.x, use CSC=mcs and for .NET 2.x, use CSC=gmcs.
3. Run make to compile the libraries and sample applications.
4. Execute make install if you want to install the client library DLLs into the Mono library.

Developing your own application
If you executed a make install after compiling the client library, you should be able to include the libraries in your own code by passing -r:Google.GData.Extensions.dll -r:Google.GData.Client.dll to the Mono C# compiler along with references to the DLL files of any specific service extensions you wish to use.

http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/articles/dotnet_client_lib.html

Now the Google API is available in the ‘Packages’ tab when you go to add references to your project.

After setting up my environment, I was still getting a security error (something about the Authentication failing). That’s because Mono is locked down by default. So, I ran this to import all of the SSL certs from Firefox (and therefore Google’s cert because I’ve logged into Google from Firefox):

mozroots –import

You just have to say yes to all the imports (there are a lot of them).