openSUSE 10.3, part 2

Previously:

• openSUSE 10.3 on an HP Pavilion dv2000 (dv2058ea)

I've been happy with openSUSE 10.3 on my laptop, so I decided to install it on my deskside PC. One key difference is that my deskside PC is a twin processor 64-bit machine, whereas my laptop is a dual-core 32-bit machine.

The upgrade went quite smoothly, there were only a few issues worth noting:

• AppArmor – I don't consider virus checkers to be useful for Linux, but Novell's AppArmor is very useful. It allows you to lock down the permissions on particular applications in a very fine-grained way. It's ideal for securing applications like e-mail clients, web browsers, and instant messaging clients. Basically, it stops applications from reading and/or writing files for which they haven't been given permissions, which means it can provide protection against as-yet-unknown future viruses.
  After upgrading, I found that my VMware Server virtual machines wouldn't run, and the VMware log files indicated a permission problem with the configuration files in the user's “ .vmware” directory. This happened even when logged in as root. It turned out that I had to run the AppArmor updater to allow some extra permissions to VMware Server, and then everything was OK.

• Skype 1.4.0 – this is only available as a 32-bit application, there is no 64-bit version for Linux. To install this, I first had to install some 32-bit libqt4 compatibility libraries (core, dbus, x11), and the 32-bit lib compatibility library for libsigc++.

• I was running the "compiz" 3-D desktop under openSUSE 10.2, but the version that comes with openSUSE 10.3 won't run with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 1000 graphics card in my deskside PC.  That's not a big issue, it just means that the windows will no longer has semi-transparent borders, they won't wobble like jelly when I move them, and the desktops won't spin from one to another in a Mac-like style.  I don't really need this visual frippery, but I'm still slightly disappointed to see my graphics card slide of the "supported" list for an application (is that the thing end of the wedge?).