OpenSUSE 12.1 Released

MasterPatricko writes "The openSUSE project is proud to present the release of openSUSE 12.1! This release represents more than eight months of work by our international community and brings you the best Free Software has to offer. Improvements include the latest GNOME 3.2 desktop as well as the newest from KDE, XFCE and LXDE; your ownCloud made easy with mirall; Snapper-shots of your file system on btrfs; and much, much more. Other notable changes include moving from sysvinit to systemd, improving the boot process, and being built on GCC 4.6.2 including link-time optimization. More packages than ever are available from the openSUSE instance of the Open Build Service, and soon you'll be able to create customized respins on SUSE Studio."

Comments

Re:Woot!

[Captain Splendid]

Actually, only 2. I switched to Debian this year.

Re:I may give this a go...

[halfaperson]

Here is a detailed list: http://en.opensuse.org/Product_highlights

Re:choices are good

[Billly Gates]

Suse once had great font rendering on LCD screens due to their version of XOrg implementing proper font rendering and hinting.

Cleartype fonts semi existence thanks to the MS deal. They are crippled intentionally and butt ugly on purpose because MS wants you to use Windows instead. I refuse to use SuSE and yes the deal harmed Suse and crippled their own product.

Re:Have your pet spayed or neutered

[Grishnakh]

I looked at the screenshot and couldn't really tell if I was looking at Fedora or openSUSE, save the open browser content.

This is by design. The Gnome developers want all Gnome installations to look exactly the same. Jon McCan't even said in an interview that he doesn't want you using any themes or customizing your Gnome desktop in any way, because this diminishes Gnome's look, and other people watching you at your computer won't be able to tell it's Gnome. Basically, the Gnome devs are trying to copy Apple and their totally non-customizable UIs, thinking that if it works for Apple, then it'll work for them too.

I beg your pardon

[Anonymous Coward]

They never promised you a rose garden.

KDE 3 back as DE choice

[SharkByte]

Given the general negative reception of GNOME 3 (and Unity and to a lesser extend still also KDE 4), it surprises me that I haven't seen it much mentioned on the net that KDE 3 is back as a DE choice. Now if only the MATE (GNOME 2 continuation) was also included...

Re:KDE 3 back as DE choice

[amRadioHed]

As far as I've heard, the only negative reception KDE 4 still gets is from people who haven't used it since 4.1 was released.

Nope, I tried SuSE

[HalAtWork]

That's silly. When Novell bought SuSE, they gave away kits at nearly every consumer electronics show, including those in america, that's how I got mine. They also offered to mail them out free if you couldn't find one in your local area. That was for SuSE 9. I've still got mine. Prior to that, a friend had been paying for SuSE since 7 (I'm not sure what the deal was, apparently it was hard to obtain free because of YaST, or update services, or something?). At the time though, I was getting into Fedora and had a much easier time with it. I didn't want to use SuSE because you did everything through their proprietary configuration interface (YaST), and I wanted to learn a more "standard" way of doing things that would apply to all distros. Since I was just testing the waters at that point, I didn't want to have to learn something I couldn't use elsewhere. Not only that, but many how-tos would refer to editing .conf files, and YaST would throw up errors and try to replace my manually configured file every time I wanted to do something like this. It also seemed much easier to find .rpms for RedHat, or .debs for Debian.

Ultimately I ended up using Ubuntu, because at one point there was a controversy over Fedora with regards to versions not being supported very long or at all, or being bleeding-edge-only, and I wanted something a little more stable. I also got bogged down in RPM hell because I did want to try certain packages that were not officially supported, and repositories that packaged them didn't have common dependencies, and although I tried compiling the software myself, there were compile issues I had trouble resolving for certain software.

Now I'm trying out Debian, to gain experience and progress in my knowledge of the GNU/Linux platform on something that's not too far off from what I'm using now.

Re:Have your pet spayed or neutered

[mcgrew]

Hmmm, I never did like Gnome. This makes me like it even less. IMO the best thing about Linux is unlike Windows, it works the way YOU want it to work. With MS (and from what you say, now GNOME) it's their way or the highway. Nope, it's MY computer, not some gnome's box.

Microsoft Zealot Here...

[fiddley]

Right, MS Zealot here, love their stuff and earn a living from it, but always want to keep my options open, just in case (as well as increasing my nerd rating, of course!). After flirting with linux multiple times since slackware '96, last weekend I've given it yet another go and I'm posting right now from the previous version of SUSE. It's the first distro I've ever installed and EVERYTHING seems to work. I've tried Linux about 20 times, but had given up after a few hours of mucking around because my mouse, or my graphics card, or my sound or my network or SOMETHING wouldn't work. Finally I've found one where everything works! I've been on it a week, and apart from not knowing how to do anything, the only problem is my fans sound like they're about to take off.

So, I'm struggling with the basics, but learning a little every day. Does anyone know a decent Windows-Linux Conversion guide which explains the parallels between the two - such as how to install drivers, where the hell is 'Program Files', what do I do if I want to install software but it's not an rpm or whatever it is suse uses. (Damn, I miss MSIs & EXEs!)

Also, is there any mail client I can use to connect to my exchange server for work email? (using MAPI \ RPC over HTTPS)

This is quite a lot of fun, and I've noticed that it seems to render flash video nicer than windows, BBC iPlayer HD is a bit stuttery on windows, but is smooth as silk over here.

Any hints and tips gratefully received!

Re:Microsoft Zealot Here...

[JCholewa]

> MS Zealot here

Liar. You're no zealot. ;P

> Does anyone know a decent Windows-Linux Conversion guide which explains the parallels between the two - such as how to install drivers, where the hell is
> 'Program Files',

In POSIX systems (Linux, Unix, BSD, QNX, Mac OS X in some cases, et al), files are split up depending on their role. You know how your settings go in "%APPDATA%\", libraries to in "%SYSTEMROOT%" and other stuff goes in "%PROGRAMFILES%\"? Well, in these systems, it is split up moreso, Generally, all binaries (the executable files) go into "$PREFIX/bin/", global configuration files go into "$PREFIX/etc/", unchanging data files go into "$PREFIX/share/", libraries go into "$PREFIX/lib", log files and changing system files (the print spool, for instance) go into "/var/". Just like in Windows, the system magically handles it all. (note: $PREFIX is usually "/usr", but it is sometimes something else -- I won't get into it here, but there are pretty good reasons for this).

> what do I do if I want to install software but it's not an rpm or whatever it is suse uses. (Damn, I miss MSIs & EXEs!)

That's a weird one. What do you do if it's not an msi or an exe in a Windows system?

rpm is the equivalent of msi, except that the package management is generally easier to work with. In suse, you go into Yast's "Software Management" app and it will list most programs (several thousand, generally, organized in categories and easily searchable) that people would need to install. Think of it as "Windows Update", but instead of offering programs that Microsoft makes, it offers programs that everyone makes (or like an app store, except that it's been in Linux for over a decade and doesn't cost money). On the command line, the equivalent is "zypper". You'd type "sudo zypper install firefox", for example, and firefox would be updated. But anyway, if you're using Yast, I suggest going into the "Software Repositories" section, clicking the "Add" button, choosing the "Community Repositories" radio button, and clicking next. The "Packman" repository is highly recommended, as it has a lot of apps that the suse people lack.

rpm files are what you use as an *alternate* solution if the program is not in an available repository, not as your primary means of installing stuff. Repositories can manage installation of prerequisites. You might have tried to install a program requiring .NET in Windows at one point and received an error stating that it was not installed. In the repositories, and situations like that would be subverted by the repository manager going online and downloading/installing what it needs to install the package you actually want.

Sometimes, a developer will release the equivalent of an exe installer for their product. nvidia is an example. This is a TERRIBLE IDEA that you sometimes just can't work around. Running an unknown executable as the administrative user is just asking for pain. I know, because one of my scientists here wiped out his server's entire filesystem by running an install script as root, and I had to pick up after him. rpm (in suse, mandriva, pclinuxos, red hat, et al) and deb (in debian, ubuntu, mint, et al) and various others give limited powers which simply allow the application to get its files in the right place and do some basic maintenance (like starting a daemon if it's a server app).

The third option that people seem to think is ubiquitous in Linux (it isn't ... unless it's a hardcore science research app) is that you're given the source code and you have to compile it. In 90% of these cases, the only real problem is that you might not have a prerequisite app or library installed to complete the compilation. Package management helps with that, but it's better to avoid having to do this. Still, most of the examples you just go to the command line, visit the directory, type "./configure && make install" and have some coffee. I don't remembe