openSUSE 11.2 Released

An anonymous reader tips news that openSUSE 11.2 has reached its official release. You can get it from their download page, or just grab the torrents (32-bit, 64-bit). "openSUSE 11.2 will come with the latest version 2.6.31 of the Linux kernel, the beating heart of every openSUSE system. The default file system of openSUSE will be switched to the new Ext4 as well. Of course, openSUSE will continue to support Ext3 and other filesystems — but on install, new partitions will automatically be designated Ext4. ... Desktops and servers can use the same kernel, but it's better to tune the kernel for the job at hand. That's why openSUSE now includes a desktop kernel specially tuned for desktop users. ... In addition to the work of the openSUSE Project in the desktop, openSUSE 11.2 includes the latest versions of the two desktop environments, KDE 4.3 and GNOME 2.28. KDE users will enjoy the new Firefox KDE integration, OpenOffice.org KDE4 integration, consistent KDE artwork and all standard applications being ported to KDE4 including KNetworkManager, Amarok, Digikam, k3b, Konversation and more."

Comments

Finally

[kimvette]

Finally, easy upgrades come to OpenSUSE.

sudo zypper dup !

I just had to cleanly install OpenSUSE 11.1 the other day because I was in the middle of patching 10.3 when Novell took down the repositories. I worked on the broken system for a week before making the time to reformat/reinstall. I started patching it by hand to make the 10.3 -> 11.1 dup work, but it was just too time consuming.

But anyway, I'll be running zypper dup in the next few days after demand on the servers dies down. It's about time SUSE users get a clean in-place upgrade process. :-)

Re:Ext4 makes me nervous as Hell.

[Rhapsody Scarlet]

Ext4 has been mature and stable for at least 3 years now.

No, it's been in the kernel for three years but was developmental for most of that. It was only declared stable with 2.6.28, which was released just over one year ago. Personally, I'm going to wait another year or two here. When it comes to file systems, I tend to be on the conservative side.

Re:Why switch to openSuse?

[cbhacking]

Actually, one of the major advantages of Yast is that it has an excellent NCurses-based terminal interface, which works beautifully over ssh. Easiest distro to remotely manage that I've ever tried (also, back in the day, easiest one to fix on the occasion that a graphics driver update made X stop working).

For those who don't know, Yast is basically the configuration tool for *everything* - repository and package management, network configuration, video driver configuration, user accounts, runlevel and login behavior, configuring a hypervisor, re-partitioning, managing GRUB... basically, it's a centralized management tool. It's graphical and designed for user-friendliness, with help info for every setting, but it will also display the relevant config files and allow you to edit them manually too. I've actually found it useful when trying to learn the format of a given config file, since Yast's help info + comparing the options on the graphical display with the generated config file = an easy way to learn the format and options of a config file.

Re:Why switch to openSuse?

[kimvette]

If you want to get actual work done, OpenSUSE is pretty much ready to go out of the box. Its achilles' heel has historically been poor wifi support (requiring a lot of tinkering, whereas Ubuntu has worked consistently well with wifi in my experience) but hopefully 11.2 fares a lot better in that regard.

Re:Ext4 makes me nervous as Hell.

[Enderandrew]

Actually those "Ext4" data corruption issues that set the Internet all ablaze (including Slashdot) were mainly due to KDE 4 not handling metadata correctly. In the end, it wasn't an Ext4 issue. However, feel free to spread FUD.

And you're right. I shouldn't have suggested he run Fat32 if he is paranoid that newer filesystems are inherently unsafe. He should run Fat16 to be sure.

Certainly, an older file system that doesn't have the nicer, fine-grained journaling (and journaling controls) which be much safer.

Ext4 is a wild, data-eating beast that just can't be trusted.