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OpenSUSE 13.1 Released and Reviewed
sfcrazy writes "The openSUSE team just announced the release of openSUSE 13.1. There are some core points which set openSUSE apart from the popular Ubuntu distro. While Ubuntu has become a more or less Canonical-owned project, openSUSE is becoming more and more community-driven. Looking at the recent controversies around Ubuntu and their move toward mobile platforms, openSUSE seems to be a great option for desktop users."
I wonder what the status is on third-party software like DB/2 LUW, Oracle, and Sybase ASE. I know Ubuntu can only handle DB/2 LUW. Oracle and Sybase want a RedHat core.
Ah well, it doesn't matter. I've got DB/2 LUW, PostgreSQL, and MySQL running under Debian, and Oracle, Sybase ASE, and SQL Server on a Win7 box, so my database needs are covered.
I've run SuSE in the past though, and did like it. To be honest I can't remember why I switched. I think that was an actual dead machine issue -- I lost a couple of boxen in a car accident about 10 years ago.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I'm curious to see how wayland changes the game.
sfcrazy writes:
Hi, it's sfcrazy. Funny story, but after my OpenSuSE submission, I got a job offer from Microsoft. Anyway, Windows 8.2 is out. It's a little more stable than Ubuntu, so if you've been thinking of switching from Ubuntu you might want to give Windows 8.2 a spin. Go on.
(Twelve months from now)
sfcrazy writes:
Hi there, sfcrazy again. Apple's PR department kindly offered me a job a few months ago. Anyway, Mac OS X 10.11 is out, and it's very Unixy. If you're getting fed up with Ubuntu, you might want switch to Mac OS X 10.11 because it's even more Unixy.
(Continued...)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I'll likely try running it off of a USB stick at some point this week, but will ask anyhow:
If I'm generally happy with Mint Linux (64, v. 15) what things in openSUSE might convince me to change?
Three Squirrels
Needing to go to random repositories sucks. It makes users less safe and until distributions understand the threat of non-free software they're going to continue to suck. From a privacy stand point as well as a vulnerability standpoint (and I'm not talking security here- I'm talking vulnerability to players like Adobe, Oracle, and Microsoft, who drop support, etc).
We also need to consider that free software isn't free. Its dependent on user contributions. And not just developers. We need users to make larger contributions and become financially supporting members thereof. $250 every few years to Microsoft for anti-virus software, OS software, and office software means nothing. To the majority of truly free software projects it means everything. Right now there are many projects at risk because of the lack of financial contributions by users.
We need to ignore the users who say “don't bother me with money requests on the download page/advertising/etc”. While we don't want to overdo or mislead (as Canonical probably has done) every project should make it unavoidably clear a financial contribution is needed each and every time the software is obtained and just how much. A small project might need $100 whereas a large project (say Debian) may need nothing. However where that large project is at the forefront (distributions) they have an obligation to request money on behalf of the developers whose software they include.
https://build.opensuse.org/package/show?project=home%3Atobijk%3AX11%3AWayland&package=wayland
let us know how you fare
The real question, is, does any of the recent controversies surrounding Canonical affect users in a practical sense (or mainly from a political/development/long term sense)?
Last version of OpenSUSE I tried was great, but, I kept having small problems (mainly related to installing Nvidia drivers which actually broke the system, steam support and other Yum issues).Technically, the nvidia issue isn't their fault, but on the other hand, it would be expected that Nvidia users need proprietary drivers.
OpenSUSE definitely deserves a lot more users, and I think long term, it could easily overtake the others. Hopefully this is a step closer in that direction.
What YaST gives is a way to configure settings through a curses/X interface for more Windows-like-users. But OpenSUSE does not tell you to use it and you can very well just install and configure it by hand, and YaST won't interfere unless you launch it.
If you really believe that it does so many things wrong, file a bug report at least. Or fix those bugs and send patches.
Bitching about it while doing nothing to fix it is not going to help other people, so STFU.
I've been using OpenSuSE since the 9.0 era. I had tried it prior to that and found it unusable on my system simply because it defaulted to some gosh-awful resolution. The icons were the size of fly specs. I didn't have time to figure out how to fix it, so I went back to my old OS. They fixed this in the 9.0 release and I've used it ever since.
One of SuSE's key features, whether you're using the community version or the paid/enterprise release, is the configuration tool (YAST, "Yet Another Setup Tool"). That thing is worth its weight in gold. It presents the same configuration options whether you're logged into a GUI or text-based via SSH. Sure, the latter is NCurses-based, but everything is where I expect it. I have been absolutely spoiled by that thing. It's the # 1 thing that I miss when I go to something else.
Red Hat, for example, while excellent and rock-stable, leaves me using command line tools for configuration when I'm in a secure shell. They've been reducing the utility of those tools (or eliminating them entirely) with each successive release, too. Plus, I don't completely trust ANY "easy-to-use" tools, but insofar as I've been able to confirm, SuSE wins.
(Example: the 5.x releases from CentOS -- I'm told that this was true with RHEL as well, of course -- would automatically open some ports in the firewall without telling you ... most notably, CUPS. I hate to dump their "system-config-securitylevel-tui" tool and do it myself. Good thing I always run an "iptables --list" before I expose something to the Internet at large ...)
YAST, YAST, YAST for me. Love it. I realize that a lot of this is just what you get used to, but I'm used to it, and I love it. :)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
I actually consider YAST2 (the "s" stands for "Setup", by the way, though it does much more than OS installation and package management) one of the key reasons to use [open]Suse. All-in-one-place administration of the system, available through several different UIs (QT/KDE3, QT/KDE4, GTK, ncurses, and probably more), is nice. It provides pretty extensive help information explaining each of the options even in the "Advanced" panels. It lets you view the config files it's changing right in the tool, including editing them yourself (in case you can't find the option you're looking for in the UI). It tells you what it's doing at every step (writing this file, running that tool, disabling or enabling interfaces, loading or unloading drivers, etc.).
It's actually helped me become better at *nix administration in general, because it gives me the ability to see what's possible (not literally every option, but far more than the typical ~20% that is all that 80% of users ever need), and to see what changes it makes to the system when I select those options (so I can duplicate them myself, including on other distros or even on non-Linux POSIX systems in many cases). The preponderance of UIs (more accurately, of UI toolkits; the actual UI always looks about the same) means that even if the X server won't start, or I'm SSHed into the box and don't want to deal with X forwarding, or I'm on the machine of somebody who uses GNOME (I prefer KDE), I can sudo yast2 and get a familiar set of tools. It's a truly handy utility.
And, as the AC parent indicates, it is of course optional and open-source. If you don't like it, don't use it. If you think there's a problem, file a bug report, or patch it yourself, maybe submit your patch if you want to. But believe me, it beats all the other distros' admin tools (at least, among the many versions of 8 or so reasonably popular distros that I've tried, including quite a few versions of Ubuntu) hands down.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I switched! Yes, I did. OMGITSOCOOL!!!1 But the Kay Dee Eee is so busy. Too busy for me. But at least it composites. Not like that Mint+Mate stuff. I got AMD but those drivers suck so I got NVidia after I tried the Intel driver on my laptop and the graphics were good but I could not get fast frames so I put in the NVidia 743 Ti X v2 and IT. WAS. SO. FAST. but then the dual heads would not work and I had to make the xorg.conf thing from a poast but it worked so do You Want To Buy My AMD card? it's really good but the X stuff LOL not so great. Zypper is weird and I like debs more but hey it works and the RPMS don't have any stinky Unity LOL that is some major fail and now I have the LXDE with openSuSE and it's nice with fluxbox BUT remember don't try rat poison I couldn't use that one LOL it had no themes and it covers my whole backgrounds WTF??. The LXDE isn't over busy like the KDE buzzz buzzz buzzzz in my HEAD with all those BUTTONS omg and tabs EveryWhere like wtf I need two mice just to configure this thing. BTW what is Akonadi?? It's trying to get my PIMS? and I had to remove it but now I get errors when I start the KDE but that's ok because I use LXDE LOL. Oh yeah and Klipper. But I tried it cuz some body on SlashDOT told me OPENsuse is for grownups and I was like YEAH that's me way grownup in fact I'm old and can't see good so use BIGGER FONTS please kthx. Can someone tell me what AKANODI is?? oh and Nepomuk. There are MILLIONS of pages on how to remove Nepomuk and Akanodi and I think I need to get them off my OPeNsuse fast or my memory and stuff will be gone..... is it OpenSUse or OPenSUSE or Opensuse or OpensusE or OPENSUSE or openSuse or what? wtf is akanodi? come on guys what is it for? google doesn't know and that's weird because google know everything and all I can find is how to remove it but someone said it would mess up my OPenSUse and I like it so I don't know what to do??????? oh right I already removed it this morning gawd its so hard to remember what I did back then but I remember it tried Kali last night and wow that is creepy its got all this cr4ckzor stuff for breaking passwords which is good because I forget them a lot so yea, just don't get spooked by the black theme and all but yeah try openSUse because I did and I did it before you noob LOL and its good stuff.
Lates.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Wow, you must have a lot of free time if money is the only reason you're running Linux.
When are we gonna get a Linux distro with the modern version of MonoDevelop.
Call it a trap all you want, it's still a dream of mine to write MVC 4 apps under Linux, using the most recent version of MonoDevelop.
YUCK.
This is related to the Novell/Microsoft deal from last decade before Novell sold its assets including Suse.
Just look at the text in those pictures? I feel like its Linux 2002 all over without the font hinting.
http://saveie6.com/
Not to mention Windows does come with a PC anyway so it is not like you save anything. ... no system76 does not count as saving as they do not get the bulk OEM discounts that Dell or Samsung get even with the Windows tax. ... but the GP is correct with annoying repositories. SuSE has a legal agreement with Microsoft. Actually the company that owns it does through the Novell acquisition which limits font use, font rendering, mp3 support, and other annoyances which is why I do not use SuSE. Other distros like Ubuntu can not offer it with the distro but you can manually add it later which is still gray legal wise.
http://saveie6.com/
YAST is also one of the reasons I love Suse. It handles MOST of the configuration tasks that MOST people need. Does it do everything..no, but it does mean you don't need to start hacking config files 90% of the time.
Today I learned SUSE still exists. I'm not even kidding.
How irrelevant is this distribution now?
BSD vs Linux!
openSUSE 13.1 review – an OS for grown-ups
If you have to call it "an OS for grown-ups" it makes it sound like it really isn't.
Did you mean hipsters?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
openSUSE's brilliance is that it allows to choose the desktop you want during installation. This is vastly preferable to Ubuntu's requirement of downloading different flavors (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, GNOME Remix). I also imagine that it's easier for devs, because it involves less packaging and distribution work.
I'm sticking with Xubuntu myself, because I much prefer the Debian way of doing things. Still, it's heartwarming to see that some things *can* be done better.
I moved away from OpenSUSE on my main computer basically because an upgrade almost completely broke my installation (as in, many programs don't work at all, many others only in a limited fashion). Otherwise I would still run OpenSUSE. Well, another reason to switch was that it is my impression that you are very likely to find a .deb package for about everything, but less likely to find an OpenSUSE RPM. So since I wanted to reinstall anyway, I decided to try a Debian-based ditribution (I'm now running Mint).
OpenSUSE ships with freetype 2.5, which of late has become better at hinting CFF fonts. You always have an option to install infinality on OpenSUSE.
What devices are you using that have bad drivers? Can you name any other Linux distribution which comes with a kernel newer than 3.11 which addresses your devices?
I don't think many people have driver/device issues when deploying SUSE or CentOS on a virtualized cloud out there, so I'm just suspecting your arguments are very dispersed in nature.
You're already at -1, so I'll save my mod points.
I've been using [open]SUSE nonstop since 9.0 or so. Way back when, I did notice a few issues where YaST would occasionally get out of sync with conf files when trying to deal with USB-connected networking devices. But I've not seen anything like this happen the last 4 or 5 years. On 12.3, I have been using YaST pretty much interchangeably with Apper and the other KDE config tools, and haven't seen a slip-up yet with package management/dependencies, USB devices, networking, or anything else.
The ncurses version of YaST is very handy when you want or need to update something (e.g. proxy when I'm in the office) *before* starting the desktop manager.
It's actually kind of a slow day at work, for a change, so I may go ahead and upgrade this arvo.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Crap, I wish I'd not posted just now, or I'd mod you up. Very well said.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
BTW, I have set up many, many disks using the partitioning and formatting tools in YaST (which IIRC are just a UI on top of gparted, yes?) and I've never had a screwup that was not my own fault for trying to do something very stupid.
I know you're not me, AC, but... Just sayin'...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
For those of you who've ever dealt with SuSE of any flavor, the "YaST" tool is the biggist millstone chained to the neck of hte users. It does a dozen vital tasks, and gets *very single one of them wrong* by conflicting with, and ignoring, features of the underlying tools it tries to weld into a giant crutch. DNS,SMTP, disk partitioning, package management, display configuration, and network configuration, it does *every single one* of those taks in fundamentally wrong ways. It can't read settings from the configuration files, and it overrides settings that can only be set by direct configuration file editing.
Don't get me *started* on the firewall and web server configuration component. B-r-r-r-r-r-r.
WTF are you on about ...
Have you actually ever used YaST? You can't have, well not within say the last 5 years or so, probably longer. Well, I've been using it since early 9.x days. If it ever was like you describe, it *must* have been before then.
YaST is very well behaved. It definitely knows how to read and write the appropriate conf file entries without borking anything. It doesn't mind if you use it this time, edit by hand next time, or another conf tool another time. It plays nicely with everyone.
In all the years I've been using it, I've only ever seen it miss reading an existing setting once, and that was over 5 years ago. I've never had to go and fix a conf file up afterwards because it had done bad things to it.
Ever stop to think
Having been using OpenSuSE since either 6.x or 7.x days, I've used every version since, some of which were painful (late 9.x releases spring to mind), and I can honestly say that you don't know what you're talking about.
YaST hasn't been required to manage the system since zypper was introduced. You can do everything you want as manually as you want, although if you make manual changes, THEN go into yast, and make "guided" (because YaST does things it's way, making it's own assumptions) changes, you will clobber your original changes.
On the other hand, if you change defaults in /etc/sysconfig, then YaST and you will get along fine. I do admit that Samba configuration, for instance, is an area where you're likely to edit smb.conf by hand, and never run the YaST tool. That's fine, openSuSE doesn't really care.
Keep in mind, YaST is really designed for less advanced users-- users who might want to join an AD tree, and share a directory, or mount a server share, and aren't interested in the intricacies of smb.conf or 'net ads'. If you set out to do a function in YaST, it will produce a working configuration-- it might not be the configuration that an advanced sysadmin would choose, and it might not work well with your enterprise, but that's OK, because you can bypass YaST for those situations (and you should). I manage a number of openSuSE workstations, originally with distributed config files, and now with puppet, and YaST is simply irrelevant.
On the other hand, I use YaST about 90% of the time at home, because it "just works".
I like SuSE. It was the first Linux distro I seriously used but in the end I switched to Ubuntu because often found myself having problems finding software on SuSE. If a piece of software or a newer version wasn't available through main repos, I recal spending ages on sites such as Pacman trying to find the right packages and resolve dependency issues. Is the situation better now? If so, I'd be tempted to switch back.
soylentnews.org
"While Ubuntu has become a more or less Canonical-owned project, openSUSE is becoming more and more community-driven."
I recall something about Microsoft promising not to sue developers as long as they acknowledge Microsofts patent claims against Linux and agree they don't own their own code and undertake not to work on OpenSuSE in company time. Not much community driving going on there that I can see.
Microsoft’s Patent Pledge for Individual Contributors to openSUSE.org
It prolly isn't.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Maybe I'm doing something wrong yet I'm following the FAQ directions, but I always wind up with a Frankenbuild -- part 13.1 and part 12.3, in this case. The boot screen still says 12.3 but some components are 13.1. It works, however an OS should be an all-or-nothing upgrade deal. I'll do a clean install tonight... I tried, man, I tried.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
I don't doubt you, however they went from GRUB to GRUB2 at some point so I want to know if that worked out. My screen would offer the old GRUB listing for OpenSuse (which worked) and the GRUB2 listing (which did not work, couldn't find the partition). Wasn't until I went clean that, oh, so this is what GRUB2 is supposed to look like?
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Wow, you must have a lot of free time if money is the only reason you're running Linux.
The reason I'm running Linux on the tower is partly because of free time. Windows is slower and takes more clicks and/or typing to get the same job done as Linux. I don't have Patch Tuesday with Linux, where the machine is out of service for half an hour, when it has patches one click and you keep doing what you were while it patches itself. No crapware to remove after installation.
After 4 years, Windows 7 crashed on my notebook. I had to take the battery out to get it started again. That's not happened once on my 10 year old kubuntu tower. Lot better than previous Windows, but still not as stable as Linux.
And there are Windows' missing features as well.
Free Martian Whores!
Suse is just a European Redhat.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The disadvantage of YaST used to be that it had its own language. With that being solved and YaST written in ruby it would be great if other distro's start using it.
Even if only for some tasks it would be great to see what others can do with it.
Also adding your own modules is a lot simpler because of ruby.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It was the only major distro that had full support out-of-box for the DBs I was using, Oracle and DB2 (mid-90s; seems after they named 'em by year distributed) at the point when I had to decide on distro; this dictated by choice. Red Hat would support 'em after updating a library, if memory serves. SuSE came in a big, green box... seems there were floppies, but perhaps it was CDs by then. I still have the Oracle floppies, tho.
OH AND... the Green Lizard, and goofy German geek humor interspersed. At no extra cost!
After not really using Linux for a decade or so for anything serious, I'm back to openSuSE again.
Yes, YaST maintains extensive logs. You can look through them and figure out alot of problems. It's funny that as a Linux/MS guy I always go to the logs when there is a problem with a Linux or WIndows servers. That doesn't appear to be the first instinct for many WIndows Admins and that is probably because the logs are so much less useful.
Cheap storage VM.
I'm also pretty sure that if YaST clobbers your changes it creates a .bak file that contains your old config.
Cheap storage VM.
IIRC most config files in openSUSE have counterparts ending with ".local" which are read after the YaST generated files, and are not touched by YaST. So if you add changes there, they will not get clobbered by YaST (although there's still the risk that YaST generates an incompatible setting in the controlled file).
It is also much faster now with Ruby.