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openSUSE Launches 11.1

Novell has unveiled their latest release to the openSUSE line with 11.1. Offering both updates and new features, Novell continues to push for more openness and transparency. The new release includes Linux kernel 2.6.27, Python 2.6, Mono 2.0, OpenOffice 3.0, and many others. "[...] Our choice was also influenced by impressive changes that are transpiring in the openSUSE community, which is growing rapidly and is also becoming more open, inclusive, and transparent. Last month, the project announced its first community-elected board, a major milestone in its advancement towards community empowerment. This is a very good openSUSE release and it delivers some very impressive enhancements. The distro has evolved tremendously in the past two releases and is becoming a very solid and usable option for regular users."

18 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. not completely off topic by FudRucker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    paste from distrowatch weekly:

    The Faculty of Physical Sciences at the University of Glasgow recently migrated their main logon server across to Slackware Linux. Shane Kelly writes: "A little while ago, the requirements for data transfer from some overseas research sites jumped tremendously, meaning I needed to assess the impact on our aging 'log in' server that was used as a portal to the Physics network." Their original server running SUSE Linux 9.3 had been working well, handling numerous login sessions, but its P3 CPU, 100 Mb network card and 96 MB of RAM were no longer enough to handle the increasing load. A new AMD Opteron-based server was selected and when it came time to choose a distribution, he headed here to DistroWatch.com to help decide. "I have never liked Red Hat (too many 'extras' between you and the operating system), ditto SUSE, and looking at the top twenty Linux distributions on DistroWatch, I could see that many were more suited to desktops, while many more had no 'pedigree' and were simply re-vamped editions of something else. Then my eye hit upon an old-timer that was said to be a bit difficult, devoid of GUI management tools, and rock solid. Yep, I'm talking about Slackware, the oldest surviving Linux distribution, now at version 12.1". The author is happy to be re-acquainted with his old friend Slackware and is recommending it to others for use on their servers.

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
  2. umm its not out yet by asv108 · · Score: 4, Informative

    openSUSE 11.1, the next major version of the company's community-driven Linux distribution, is scheduled for release on December 17.

    1. Re:umm its not out yet by diersing · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's metric for today, Monday 15-December

    2. Re:umm its not out yet by arizonagroovejet · · Score: 3, Informative

      I can only assume the parent was modded to +5 informative by people who didn't read the very first line of TFA:

      openSUSE 11.1, the next major version of the company's community-driven Linux distribution, is scheduled for release on December 18.

      Copy/paste! How did you get 17, parent?

    3. Re:umm its not out yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      So /. is actually ahead of breaking news for a change?

  3. Re:Is This One the Microsoft Certified Linux? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny
  4. Re:Is This One the Microsoft Certified Linux? by Anarke_Incarnate · · Score: 4, Informative

    how often does this bullshit have to be trotted out, only to make the poster (In this case, AC) look like a moron?

    http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft,-Novell-spar-over-Linux-agreement/2100-7344_3-6137444.html

    Now stop it already

  5. Is it really trolling? by jfbilodeau · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems that every post that points out the Novell/Microsoft deal are marked as troll or flamebait.

    I know it's a hot issue and the Microsoft/Novell deal still bothers me, but anyone bringing up this issue is automatically tagged as troll. Care to explain?

    --
    Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
    1. Re:Is it really trolling? by ionix5891 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      um maybe because they are trolling

  6. Re:Still not safe to use Suse of any sort by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How does the Novell/Microsoft deal affect your rights? You have not signed it.

    If it did affect your rights in some nefarious way, how would not using Suse counteract that?

    But still, being aware to look after your rights is a good instinct. Just make sure it is based on facts not FUD. The Free Software Foundation has a list of free distributions which meet their standards. The FSF is generally the most legally conservative and ideologically pure outfit in the free software world, so if you use something they have approved you can be pretty certain of peace of mind.

    A reasonable alternative is to use a distribution which keeps a clear distinction between free software and non-free. Debian is famous for this, but Fedora (which is what I use) also has a policy to include only free software (in recent releases anyway). The difference with the FSF-approved distributions lies in loadable firmware, but you may not be concerned about that.

    (If you don't want to use Suse because you dislike Novell's business practices and their deal with Microsoft, that's your choice, but just say so rather than inventing stuff about 'legal risks'. Or if you do know of legal risks, please explain what they are so that people can fix the problem.)

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    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  7. Re:Suse is not linux by ThePhilips · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Kids, you read too much of rabbid flames...

    As I'm concerned, SUSE is good OS. Let the rest be sorted out by GPL.

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    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  8. Re:Failed the Grandma Test by Mr_Magick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know what elderly people you work with, but none, I repeat, none of the people I work with have every known how to shut down or reboot Vista without me explaining.

    MS has hidden the Shut Down and Reboot options under a very small, and unassuming button with a triangle on it in the very lower right of the menu. The Sleep button is the big, red button with the power symbol on it.

    I know anecdotal evidence and everything; but your test fails for Vista on every user I have worked with.

  9. Re:Still not safe to use Suse of any sort by ThePhilips · · Score: 4, Informative

    +1.

    A reasonable alternative is to use a distribution which keeps a clear distinction between free software and non-free.

    SUSE always made clear distinction between commercial/non-free software they include and core OS. Core OS always was and is GPL'ed Linux.

    All software is installed with rpm - you can always grep for license.

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    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  10. Re:Failed the Grandma Test by pembo13 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have hard time belieeving your grandma was able to install Windows and not Linux. 1) Pop in Fedora Live , hit "Install to Hard drive" 2) Open up what word processor (usually only one on a Live cd) 2b) Type letter, save as/export as PDF 3) Open up Firefox/Gmail or Thunderbird send email 4) Take picture, plug SSD into SSD reader on machine 5) Here it gets tricky, can't remember if Linux distros auto add printers... then again I can't remember Windows auto adding printers either. And why exactly does your grandma test include installing and setting up and operating system?

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  11. Re:Still not safe to use Suse of any sort by ThePhilips · · Score: 3, Insightful

    SUSE always made clear distinction between commercial/non-free software they include and core OS. Core OS always was and is GPL'ed Linux.

    You have a short memory. YaST was non-free not so long ago. I think Novell made it free software after they bought SuSE.

    Well, in the days I used SUSE very extensively. And, no, SUSE never tried to hide the fact that they ship and install non-free software.

    What's more, if you would dig you memory, you might recall that they pretty much from day one were stating that it is impossible to build good OS with only free software. And they were always shipping commercial software. e.g. SUSE was first Linux to include movie editing software - in the times when there was no F/LOSS alternatives. They were also shipping MP3 support - because they acquired license for that. (*)

    SUSE was openly stating that they are per se not free. You can make out of SUSE free OS - yet you would loose lots of functionality, making OS non-starter in any OS comparison. And SUSE was always comparable versus Windows and Mac OS.

    (*) Freely downloadable ISO image not always included all goodies of the boxed retail version.

    --
    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  12. Re:Still not safe to use Suse of any sort by spirit+of+reason · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, while you go on in fear, I'm going to continue using what I've found to be the most polished distribution for KDE4 users (out of Fedora, openSUSE, Kubuntu, and Debian). Fedora annoyingly included a pre-release version of xorg that didn't have driver support from nvidia or amd. I have no idea what's up with Kubuntu; the maintainers need to work a little harder at making it stable and fast. Debian is just missing some of the nicer GUI tools for system administration.

    If you've got a better distribution to try, I'd love to hear it. (I'm really happy we have KVM ^_^)

  13. Re:Still not safe to use Suse of any sort by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please take your American software patent problems elsewhere.

    Thank you,
    rest of the world

  14. Re:Suse is not linux by NotBorg · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes Mono. Software that would have required a Windows box is now running on a Linux box.

    [sarcasm]
    It's terrible that organizations have another option for migrating to a non Microsoft Platform. Obviously they should rewrite their software from scratch or stay away from Linux. Linux is pure and holy!!! The power of Linus compels you!

    Samba, Wine, Evolution, Pidgin, etc, etc, are all evil too.
    [/sarcasm]

    Yeah I know... all those packages that could be useful for migrating away from a Genuine Microsoft OS are evil. You can go away now.

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    I want this account deleted.