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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."
openSUSE 11.2 will come with the latest version 2.6.31 of the Linux kernel, the beating heart of every openSUSE system.
As opposed to all those other distros, which don't use the Linux kernel as their "beating heart." :)
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. :-)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Only you can tell. If you are happy with what you have, stay where you are. (This also goes for Windows users.) If you are interested in trying out, download it and try it out. I use it as I like YaST and zypper. I also like to use it to combine it with the repositories I can make myself on https://build.opensuse.org/ and I like it because I can easily make my own distro based on it on http://susestudio.com/
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It is unfortunate, however, you'll need to run Wine or VMWare or Virtualbox or Xen to get those viruses loaded and running.
(I tend to think the other way: How can I run Nautilus, KTorrent, KRDC, and GMountISO in Windows.)
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Sure a few reasons;
OpenSUSE has one of the best KDE4 setups. They've done a lot of work into making KDE4 really shine. The Firefox KDE integration is AWESOME, and not something I am sure the other distros are shipping with. There is also additional work above and beyond stock on OpenOffice and such. A great attention to detail on the theming (not that you can't change that on Ubuntu and Fedora).
Zypper is hands down the best RPM tool and I would say on par or superior to Apt. Definitely a step over yum.
Nomad provide an RDP server for Linux that supports Compiz, not sure if that's been ported to other distros.
iFolder (if you care about that) is so far only packaged for SUSE, I believe.
Also Yast is great to administer your system if you're not command line friendly. It used to be atrocious, but now is very much decent. I still don't use it that much, but it has an appeal to people (especially our Windows friends). Overall it's a solid distro and I would say on par with Ubuntu and others.
It's a bit more stable that Fedora, or at least that's been my opinion from using it. It's well balanced new enough packages but it doesn't change every 6 months and when it does change it's possible and fairly easy to upgrade.
It has java packages, mono packages, all the dev tools you can image. The repository collection they have is fairly rich and complete as well. Flash runs in Firefox, there are VLC package with video codecs and all the good stuff. Honestly, to me as a user and I've sort of done my time being a bleeding heart libre/free software advocate and monk, it's not ideological, it's simply a platform and it works pretty darn well. I know people get butt hurt about mono and java and who Novell has done business with but it works out of the box, has damn never everything I need and it has all the fluff that is nice to have. If you've got some ideological feelings, you'll be happier with FC12. Firefox is called "Firefox" in OpenSuse. I believe it has a webkit based browser now as well. Opera is in the non-OSS repo. It has a non-OSS repo.
As far as comparing it to Ubuntu? It's RPM based. It seems like a very competitive product with Ubuntu but I couldn't say which is "better."
It's a high quality, community driven distribution with all the bells and whistles.
Suse read NTFS partitions out of the box years before Ubuntu could.
There you go again, egging us on to use such tools with no legitimate use for actual *legal* purposes.
Somewhere, the CEOs of Comcast, Time-Warner, the RIAA, and AT&T have collectively felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if most of their objections to actual legitimate Internet use were suddenly silenced...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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.
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.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
So not being able to run native apps to buy from iTunes, sync my iPod and iPhone
It's almost like you blame Linux for the fact your hardware vendor tries so hard to lock out 3rd party support.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
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.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Ext4 is merely an extension (that is mostly backwards-compatible) of Ext3. Ext4 was born out of patches that were intended for Ext3. In 2006, the decision was made to split some of the newer features being pushed into Ext3 under the namespace of Ext4. It isn't like they started development on Ext4 in 2006. In 2006, there was a usable file system from the day it was annouced as a "new" project.
It was pretty damn stable then, and even more stable now.
I've been running it for 3 years. The age of a product does not always equate directly to stability. There are old releases that aren't very stable, and then there are projects that are well designed, and are stable pretty much from day 1.
Ext4 is one such project. However, if you're terrified of Ext4 eating your dog, you're welcome to run Fat32 if it makes you feel better.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
It's almost like you blame Linux for the fact your hardware vendor tries so hard to lock out 3rd party support.
You're right. Some people do. Because Linux "evangelists" like to say that Linux can do everything Windows can do.. .except better, AND it's more secure, AND it's free, AND it has a GREAT community.
MOST of which is true. It may or may not be better, it is more secure and it's free and it does have a good community (there are plenty of Windows communities as well, of course).
But it does not do everything Windows can do, because not everything runs on Linux. And most people do not want to lose hardware that works well for them for the sake of switching to Linux. Like iPods and iPhones.
Sure, blame Apple and not Linux for the actual hardware issue (interesting: Apple is a great company at Slashdot until it is convenient for it not to be a great company at Slashdot :) my experience, anyways)... but blame Linux fans for claiming things that either aren't true or are only true if you are more committed to using Linux than using your existing proprietary hardware. Some people care more about their existing hardware that works well and that they like than whether or not it works with Linux. And it's a perfectly valid reason, too. Doesn't mean Linux is bad, it just means some people have different priorities.
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.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
>> So not being able to run native apps to buy from iTunes, sync my iPod and iPhone
You are saying as if it is a bad thing.
KDE 4 wasn't following POSIX standards for writing to a HDD.
You sir, are an idiot.
Read the bug report.
I'll give you some quotes:
After a clean reboot pretty much any file written to by any application (during the previous boot) was 0 bytes.
For example Plasma and some of the KDE core config files were reset. Also some of my MySQL databases were killed...
-- Bogdan Gribincea
The files that were zeroed when my machine hardlocked I'd imagine were the ones that were in use; my desktop env is Gnome and I was running a game in Wine. Wine's reg files which it would have had open were wiped and also my Gnome terminal settings were wiped.
-- Ben Hodgetts
I'm using 2.6.28-8-generic and a crash just zeroed out a _load_ of important files in my git repository which I'd recently rebased a patch series in.
-- Peter Cliffton
Ack... had a power outage and ran into this one today too. Several configuration files from programs I was running ended up trashed. This also explains the corruption I've seen of my BOINC/SETI files when hard-rebooting in past weeks.
-- 3vi1
I did mix up 30 minutes and 30 seconds. But that's just an example of tons of different applications, databases, source files, Gnome settings and whatever cleaned out by this BUG. Why you keep denying it I don't know, but at least you earned youself a foe rating for it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings