OpenSUSE 11.0 Beta 1 Has Been Released

Francis Giannaros writes "The first beta release for openSUSE 11.0 is now available. Some of the highlights include fast package management, KDE 3.5.9 and 4.0.3, GNOME 2.22.1 and an impressive new installer using Qt4 CSS-like stylesheets. Changes behind the scenes include switching to RPM LZMA payload and making RPMs smaller (faster to download), and quicker to decompress (faster installation)."

Comments

I hope

[hansraj]

that comments are about the distro and not about Novel.

Re:I hope

[Darundal]

You expect comments about the article, and not a moralized tangent discussion? What site do you think you are on?

SuSE does seem the best for packaging mechanics

[moreati]

SuSE Linux was my first Linux distro, back when I thought 'I paid money for this, it came in a box' automatically means 'This is better'.

I've moved to other distributions since, but I still think SuSE has the best packaging mechnanics. I'm not talking about their packages/repositories or the merits of apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade. I mean that SuSE better optimise the package transfer and installation.

To my knowledge, SuSE Linux is still the only pre-compiled distribution that patches/upgrades a package by downloading only the changes. They have delta rpms that are much smaller to download than completely new packages.

The linked video would suggest that their new package front end is much nippier also.

Hats off to you.

The second screenshot is great!

[denominateur]

"Multimedia sucks."

http://jimmac.musichall.cz/images/blog/qt4-rocks.png

OpenSUSE is awesome

[Skylinux]

SUSE was my first Linux distribution because I could purchase it at BestBuy.... that was many years ago.
I eventually switched to Slackware to learn Linux but decided to switch back to SUSE a few years ago because I wanted to become productive instead of hunting depended software to satisfy ./configure
Don't get me wrong, there is noting wrong with the "hands on" Linux systems as I recommend Slackware to anybody who wants to know Linux.

One thing that makes me shake my head is the over hyped Ubuntu distribution, bracing for negative mod points now... Seriously though, OpenSUSE makes it so simple to install almost any program, add Pacman's repository, install Mplayer and it all begins to "just work"...

If you have not tried OpenSUSE, give it a try, I doubt you will regret it.

BTW, I am typing this on my Fujitsu laptop connected to a wireless lan which worked "out of the box" ... Windows is a true sandbox OS for me now, useful only for gaming....

Re:OpenSUSE is awesome

[AndGodSed]

Disclosure: I am a bit of an Ubuntu fanboi ;) (please notice the wink *nudge-nudge*)

Right - One of my first distributions was also Suse - SLED and SLES - got it from the novell stands at Software Freedom Day here in South Africa.

I liked it, but because of some niggles I moved on.

1. I run on limited hardware, and Suse being a bit hardware intensive (my impression here) it was a bit slow - took four hours to install on my pc and five hours on my laptop. Not a fault on the Distro's part I am quick to point out.
2. Everything did not just work in my case, but I enjoy tinkering so that was not a big reason for movin on.

Currently I am using Ubuntu.

1. It contends better with my limited hardware. A clean install takes only about 40minutes to an hour. (Yes my computer/laptop is O_L_D!)
2. It "feels" more intuitive, but that is more personal taste than any real advantage over SUSE.
3. Shipit. This is a real advantage over other distributions. Being able to order a free disk of the latest version is a real plus.

Here are a few critiscisms of Ubuntu:

1. Heavy reliance on the internet to install anything from codecs to extra software.
2. DVD releases that in fact have extra software are not available as boxed sets is a disadvantage wrt boxed sets like Suse.
3 The color scheme - what the heck with the brown? Many distro's look much better - Suse, Linux Mint are just a few examples. Fedora looks great too.

One thing that gives Suse a great advantage is the effort that goes into the Enterprise Desktop package. It makes a lot of effort to be easy to integrate with an office environment - this naturally spills over to the Opensuse version.

I don't think Ubuntu is OVER hyped - it has many good points, and is really a leader in many aspects, just as Suse, PCLOS, Fedora, Mandriva and so on all have areas where they lead. What I really find exciting is that every distro has access to what it lacks and is available in another. Take PCLOS using Synaptic for instance.

THAT is what has handed the lead to Linux, and has placed Windows in second/Third place.

Honest and helpful information, I appreciate that

[golodh]

I was struck by the usefulness and honesty of one of the comments on the SuSE 11.0 release site.

This one:

"To make a long story short: KDE 4.0 is not and never was meant to replace 3.5.x for regular users. The main goals were porting to Qt4 and creating the frameworks to create all the things announced for KDE 4. Frameworks are unfortunately hardly visible to the user, so most things that use them, like plasmoids, panel-functionality etc., will only appear after the frameworks are in place, i.e. starting with 4.1." (see http://news.opensuse.org/2008/04/18/announcing-opensuse-110-beta-1/)

Now that's a useful comment for an end-user like me. It honestly tells me what's not in the package and what not to expect, and it does so in an up-front manner in three short sentences. As such it's a relief from the way you have to dig for this sort of information on the KDE webpage (see http://www.kde.org/).

Don't get me wrong, I like the KDE desktop ... but I just don't want to know about (or have to dig through) the details of how the desktop is evolving. Let alone the vagaries of all those applets starting with a K. This announcement is end-user friendly in that it gets to the heart of the matter (i.e. I can try KDE 4 in SuSE 11.0 if I want to beta-test it, but it won't give me anything new) without me having to wade through pages of details ... or worse an install. My compliments.