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OpenSUSE 11.3 Is Here
lukehashj writes "The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of the latest incarnation of openSUSE, with support for 32-bit and 64-bit systems. OpenSUSE 11.3 is packed with new features and updates including SpiderOak to sync your files across the Internet for free, Rosegarden for free editing of your audio files, improved indexing with Tracker, and updates to Mozilla Firefox, and Thunderbird."
A bit, imho, far more relevant ones, are described in Top Features. Support for Btrfs, and the visual interface of Meego for netbooks, sound to me a bit more interesting, apart of the usual incremental improvement over previous versions.
I was at a European conference a week ago and there were quite a few attendees with laptops running some version of openSUSE. A previous UK computer science department I was in also used openSUSE as its distro.
I use openSuSE, as do most of the people I know. It doesn't have the warm fuzzies that people seem to get off Fedora and it doesn't have the nerd chic/new hotness feeling that Ubuntu has (which many, many others have had before, I might add), but it is a very well-maintained and established distro with probably the best configuration/installation (yast is very nice) of the lot, and has benefited from closeness to both the GNOME and KDE projects.
It's a nice distro.
I for one do (and it is still in the top 5 on distrowatch). YaST is a wonderful tool if you have never used it. One place to edit just about every config file and deal with system admin is very useful. Also their integration with KDE is by far the best of all the distros I have tried in a long time.
What is this "Linux" thing? Is that a new Apple or Microsoft product?
Well when you quit submitting quality links with great summaries this website has just gone to hell.
Why don't you submit better stories with great summaries anymore?
I am of course being sarcastic, but really if you want better submit better.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
YaST is a wonderful tool if you have never used it.
.. and once you have used it, it's not so wonderful? :)
It isn't as bleeding edge as Ubuntu, but the releases aren't nearly as broken.
openSUSE has give us Compiz, Moonlight, Office 2007 support in OpenOffice, Exchange support in Evolution, Samba, etc.
It is my distro of choice. And I also really like that they focus on putting out both really solid KDE and Gnome desktops.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
http://susestudio.com/
Build your own image with USB as your target. The process is simple and streamlined (and they have videos).
Because OpenSUSE's KDE implementation tends to be less buggy and better integrated than most, it's frequently used as a reference distro for KDE reviews. Basically, if there's a KDE function that doesn't work on OpenSUSE, it's assumed that it doesn't work anywhere, which probably isn't too far from the truth.
Plus, YaST is a fairly intuitive and exhaustive system management console. It admittedly gets a little buggy when you start bumping into corner cases, but, if you're not into hand-coding your config files, it's vastly superior to dpkg-configure. Though I certainly don't begrudge anyone that's willing to wade their way through the command-line and their system's config files, it's nice to have some tools that help you go in the right direction when you need to do those one-off configuration jobs and don't require a fully functional LAMP installation (Webmin, phpMyAdmin, and so on).
soak a fox's tail in gasoline and light it on fire. see how the fox zigzags this way and that, covering a lot of ground in an unpredictable erratic path? just like surfing the web
And had Novell not gotten in bed with Microsoft, I might even consider SuSE. However, they did, and thus SuSE was completely removed from my radar (and most everyone else in our Linux User's Group. Now it is Mandriva, Fedora, and Ubuntu.
I understand those sentiments. However, as a Linux advocate, I want Linux to grow and succeed. Part of that means that people need migration paths from Microsoft solutions to Linux solutions. Novell seems to be the one company working on interoperability and migration paths to help people.
In striking the patent deal, it helps protect Novell as they work on Samba, Mono, etc. which in turn open the door for enterprise environments to integrate Linux in a Windows envrionment.
Not to mention, since openSUSE is free (as in beer) you're not financially supporting Novell. If you don't donate or contribute back, you're actually adding to their financial burdern.
openSUSE is also community driven, so you're really spiting the community more than Novell.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
On a non-production system I made the mistake of editing the httpd file through Yast2. Yast "helped" "fix" my conf file so that Apache would not longer work. I learned not to edit important configuration files through gui tools.
I haven't looked at SuSE linux in almost 4 years.. SLES 9 was very stable.
Ubuntu is on all of my workstations & laptops now, and RHEL is on the servers.
I'm worried that Microsoft could try to claim that it proves Linux as-is infringes on Microsoft patents. However, does Microsoft really want a lengthy SCO-type trial?
Linus has said he's pretty sure there is prior art for anything Microsoft would try to claim.
In the end, it infused Novell with cash (which they needed) and gave Novell security that they wouldn't be sued.
Personally, I don't think Microsoft really can start a massive patent war against Linux on the whole because the EU has already twice dropped massive fines on them, and said if they didn't work on interoperability (which I think led to the Novell deal) the EU would ban the sale of Microsoft products in the EU.
Microsoft's hands are somewhat tied here. They can try a little FUD every now and then, but they can't do much damage.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Works on any of the live CD downloads. Needs to be done as root. usbdevice will typically be sd[a-z]. setting the block size to 8 MB just makes it go faster.
Detailed instructions here.