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OpenSUSE To Offer Rolling Release KDE Experience

Posted by samzenpus on from the the-way-you-want-it dept.

sfcrazy (1542989) writes "openSUSE and KDE teams are working on creating four KDE SC repositories for openSUSE which will enable users to get the the kind of experience they want. Users can stick to the default repos that come with openSUSE if they want to use what openSUSE offers. Those users who want to stay updated with the latest KDE SC releases can use the "KDE:Current" repository which will always remain updated. 3rd repo "KDE:Distro:Factory" will offer KDE packages which are being tested and prepared before they are pushed to the 'Current' repo. The fourth repo "KDE:Unstable:SC" will offer early builds as they are being devloped."

51 comments

  1. definitely news for nerds by turkeydance · · Score: 0

    so there.

    1. Re:definitely news for nerds by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 0

      ...and both KDE users have already shown up to comment. Badabing!

    2. Re:definitely news for nerds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trollin`, trollin`, trollin`, keep them KDoggies rollin`

      With apologies to Frankie Laine and I guess I better mosey along before I get caught in the KDoggie stampede...

      Rawhide

  2. Debian by Vlijmen+Fileer · · Score: 2

    Sooo, KDE goes Debian. No shame in there, it happens to the best so certainly KDE can be excused.

    1. Re:Debian by enter+to+exit · · Score: 1

      How would i do this with Debian Stable? The latest KDE (or near enough latest) isn't in backports and i can't find any repos (that don't constantly break or have missing dependencies) that have it.

      I ended up moving towards Debian Testing (which is fine) but i'm interested in how you would do it.

    2. Re:Debian by Vlijmen+Fileer · · Score: 1

      I'm not doing that :) I dislike KDE much, so I'm not even using it, sorry...
      I was just trying to say that KDE, as an infrastructure project, seems to take on Debian's system as a distribution of always having a fixed number of well-defined releases "in the air". For Debian ofcourse these are stable, testing, unstable and experimental.
      B.t.w. testing is indeed fine to use for desktop systems; it has about the stability of other distributions' stable releases.

    3. Re:Debian by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're an ass. This piece of news is about a change in how opensuse distributes kde. It has not a single thing to do with kde as such.

    4. Re:Debian by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      I'm not doing that :) I dislike KDE much, so I'm not even using it, sorry...
      I was just trying to say that KDE, as an infrastructure project, seems to take on Debian's system as a distribution of always having a fixed number of well-defined releases "in the air". For Debian ofcourse these are stable, testing, unstable and experimental.
      B.t.w. testing is indeed fine to use for desktop systems; it has about the stability of other distributions' stable releases.

      But then your original comment doesn't make sense as KDE isn't doing anything different than they were prior to the announcement. Opensuse.org is making a change, but not KDE.

  3. As an alternative to /. subscription: by rmdingler · · Score: 0
    I am willing to click on ads here that I've Amazoned cookies from,

    and even mercifully post on starving threads to get the comment number up.

    I would like to apply for an ampersand to be printed after my nom de guerre.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:As an alternative to /. subscription: by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      A subscription ain't all it used to be cracked up to be. The 2-minute-between-comments plumb disappeared a few weeks ago. At 5 minutes I participate far less frequently than I used to.

      Speaking of which, and to further erode comment quality (not going to wait 5 minutes to post on another thread), I'll just mention that the kde-redhat project has been doing this on Fedora for about seven years and it works well.

      http://mirror.unl.edu/kde-redh...

      Rex and his crew do a great job.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:As an alternative to /. subscription: by rmdingler · · Score: 1
      I've investigated the possibility of intelligent life on some of alternatives to le site de la ligne verte. Without exception, when they have been weighed and measured, they have been found wanting. It's like work reading through the banal to get to the rare gem. This site is not without it's flaws, but like democracy, it's still the best option available.

      And you're a four-digit slash-daddy with a subscription... you not going anywhere.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    3. Re:As an alternative to /. subscription: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      honestly the repos keepnchanging in url but suse has easily had it for kde 4s liife to date afaik

  4. State of openSuse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I used to use openSuse a long time ago, before switching to Ubuntu.

    What's the distro like? I'm thinking of a move back, given the bullshit surrounding Ubuntu lately.

    1. Re:State of openSuse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      It is your typical Linux bugfest with lacking quality assurance.

    2. Re:State of openSuse? by Swarley · · Score: 1

      I've had absolutely no problems with 13.1 on either an Ivy Bridge laptop or a desktop with Nvidia GPU. Also using Gnome and not KDE though in case that makes any difference.

    3. Re:State of openSuse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And I've been using it with KDE without issues (on a desktop), and KDE:Current will be a welcome change - faffing about with new repos for every KDE release has been *the* reason I try Chakra et al from time to time.

    4. Re:State of openSuse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OpenSUSE xfce?

    5. Re:State of openSuse? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      I've had absolutely no problems with 13.1 on either an Ivy Bridge laptop or a desktop with Nvidia GPU.

      Same here, with one exception. If you've not hit this yourself already, here's a tip from someone who just found out the hard way with a machine that came with a GeForce GTX660 which I absolutely checked out for support/drivers before buying the box... BUT:

      Don't use the Nouveau driver any longer than absolutely necessary. It is supposed to support this card, but it's flaky as hell, with lots of flickers, hangs, and eventually a crash of the desktop that leaves the driver caught in an endless loop.

      Also, do not use the RPM to install the Nvidia driver unless you really like hosing your system. Scads of missing files and/or wrong permissions--I couldn't even begin to figure out how to fix all the issues, uninstalled it, had an even bigger mess, and finally just reinstalled the OS.

      Use the .run installer. Worked like a charm for me.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    6. Re:State of openSuse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a part of microsoft and comes with mono

    7. Re:State of openSuse? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Um, lots of distros come with Mono. Whether you choose to install or not is up to you. I can assure you that it's not installed on any of *my* openSUSE systems. As for others, you'll have to ask them.

      As for the quality of the distro itself--been using it since 2005 and it works just fine for me.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    8. Re:State of openSuse? by Swarley · · Score: 1

      You don't even need to do any of these. Just add the Nvidia repository to your system with Yast. It's already on the list of community repos. Automatically installs the latest driver no problem. Or use the 1-click button on the Nvidia driver page of the openSUSE wiki (which I'm pretty sure just does the exact same thing as the first option but even easier).

    9. Re:State of openSuse? by pe1chl · · Score: 1

      Do you run it for more than a single day at a time?
      I have huge memory leak problems. Admittedly, my 2GB RAM is not a real lot today, but after 10 days
      of uptime there is 1.4GB of swap in use and increasing. Processes like kded4 and kdeinit4 are huge.
      More memory is on the way, but at this rate it is not going to help much.

      With a previous (KDE3) install I could keep the system running (and logged in) for 6-12 months without
      such problems.
      I read that others using KDE4 have had this problem for several years, and nothing has been done.
      What gives?

    10. Re:State of openSuse? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      I should have made it clear, when I said "RPM" I was in fact referring to the Nvidia repos, and using their repos was one of the system-hosing options to which I alluded. Sorry about that.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  5. Year of the linux? Maybe 2040. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So i guess I will be able to install the latest gimp, blender, inkscape, vlc, etc... no more errors, no more compiling, because the distro is up to date and compatible with the new software. With windows 7/8.1 you can install old(not all dos programs) or new versions of a software on it without worrying it's gonna break or not install at all. Linux developer communities forgot the most important thing about an OS is the type of software(photoshop, office, quickbooks, gimp, libreoffice, etc.... that you can run on it. It's so useless for developers to waste time and energy coming up with another debian or slackware based distro and we have enough DE's, just finish developing wayland and convince amd and nvidia to target their drivers for this new display server and just move on.

    I still prefer kde over windows 7 shitty, non-customizable single taskbar.

    1. Re:Year of the linux? Maybe 2040. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Windows backwards compatibility? don't make me laugh. I've had to deal with so much shit while transitioning users from XP to 7, it's unbelievable. Don't even think about 8.1!

  6. KDE, the one we want to love by horza · · Score: 0, Troll

    Ah KDE, oh I so would love to love it. Instead it looks terrible, is glitchy, and suffers so many usability issues I give up after a day. I stuck with it at 4.0, through the dark days, all the way to 4.3. I tried to give it another go not long ago, as I look to move from Unity, but double-clicking on a movie file on a network drive insists on copying the 1Gb file to /tmp before playing it. No thank you.

    Go to kde.org to look at the latest screenshots. Can't find it? You didn't think to look at menu item "Workspaces" and click on "Plasma desktop"?

    I'll take another look after they've refactored the codebase for the umpteen millionth time. The moment I try installing I am sure they will tell me it's already deprecated as they are releasing Frameworks 6 Plasma Ultra 3.14 which won't be backwardly compatible but is waaay cooler underneath.

    Make the thing usable godammit!!!

    Phillip.

    --
    Property for sale in Nice, France
    1. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hi everybody. My name is horza, and I am apparently dumber than a fucking video player.

    2. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by fromhell091 · · Score: 1

      Well, you know, they're trying: KDe HIG --> http://techbase.kde.org/Projec... KDe Viual Group --> http://wheeldesign.blogspot.se... Plasma next would be interesting...

    3. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by Barsteward · · Score: 1

      "Instead it looks terrible," - thats your fault if you cannot configure a linux desktop to look good.

      " is glitchy" - eh????

      " and suffers so many usability issues" - eh????

      PBUK me thinks

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
    4. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by BlackPignouf · · Score: 1

      I loved KDE 3.5, and would spend weeks customizing everything to look exactly like I wanted.
      It worked perfectly, I had all the right applications and buttons at the right place.

      I tried 4.5 and newer versions, but with a kid and my day job, I simply don't have time to look through the 1000 menus, tabs and radio buttons.
      So I have to stay with the default config, but it kinda sucks.

      On the other hand, Linux Mint + Mate gets the job done out of the box and it looks decent.

    5. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by Maelwryth · · Score: 1

      If it looks terrible then change it. All I usually do is change everything over to oxygen, but thats just the way I like it......IMO it wasn't really usable until about 4.6 or so but that was a problem the distros/me caused by using a desktop that wasn't ready for what we wanted to use it for. It was my choice to install it. I could have just stuck with KDE 3. If I want to go back I still can in fact.

      Try using a media player like SMPlayer for your copying to /tmp woes. That has worked for me. Kaffiene has never appealed. VLC I like, but SMPlayer just seems to be better for me.

      Unsure about the kde.org comment. If I want to look at other desktops I go menu/Configure_Desktop/Workspace_Appearance/Desktop_Theme and then click on Get_New_Themes.

      As for updating the codebase. Well, if they didn't do that then our desktops would still look like this. Which is fine but I prefer this.

      As for usability. I use it every day and I am not a linux guru.

      --
      I reserve the write to mangle english.
    6. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by horza · · Score: 1

      I don't want to spend ages configuring. Glitches included a list of problems I included in a previous thread. Sorry but it does NOT look slick at all, the graphics look dated. I used 3.5, then switched to xfce4, then to Gnome, then to KDE 4.0, then at 4.3 switched to Unity. If it wasn't for the spyware I would definitely be sticking to Unity, it looks very polished and is easy to use. I played with KDE at Christmas and tried shifting a guinea pig family member to it even, but ended up switching all the machines to Linux Mint. So far Mint looks like my target when I reformat, though it's not my ideal desktop.

      I love the idea of KDE, it pleases me technically, but take at look at the screenshot (I would like to say screenshots but there is only one): the mess of Dolphin, the Windows95 task bar. Now compare it to Unity (amazing interactive demo, as well as slick looking desktop), or these themes for the still immature Cinnamon and compare it to kde-look.org.

      I've written apps using QT, it's very nice. But as a desktop it's got a hell of a long way to go.

      Phillip.

      --
      Property for sale in Nice, France
    7. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by horza · · Score: 1

      The SuSe screenshot is pretty, much better than the Kubuntu I installed a couple of months ago which is the stock one that looks pretty poor. Still the clutter in Dolphin but at least they cleaned up the task bar. However I don't want to have to change my apps to suit my DE! The apps are far more important to me than eye candy. I should be able to double-click on a movie and have it play directly in any media player I choose to install.

      I agree with cleaning up the codebase, I liked the move to 4.0 at the expense of 3.5. I like the perpetual innovation. I have KDE installed on my current machine, however I am not tempted to even log into that session until I see a major new release than concentrates on looks and usability rather than more behinds the scenes changes.

      Phillip.

      --
      Property for sale in Nice, France
    8. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by fromhell091 · · Score: 1

      Well, but you could also compare for alternative KDE defaults: openSUSE kde theme, Netrunner KDE theme, Chakra Kde theme,Nitrux Theme, Rosa Theme... There's a lot of distros who doesn't ship a vanilla KDE theme... But if you want a more moder-looking KDE.. you could wait for the default theme (wip) in Plasma Next.. for example, for Dolphin

    9. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by fromhell091 · · Score: 1

      And if anyone wants to try KDE 4.13 (or whatever version KDE you want) without having to install it on your system, the best way is to test it in your browser with susestudio .. better than a simulation, an almost real system in your browser

    10. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I kind of felt the same way. Honestly, I was always a Gnome guy even when they went to 3 (and Gnome 3.6 and up has been great for me.) KDE always had a lot of customization but boy did it take some time if you weren't familiar with it. I just gave up and found Gnome to be more than adequate and it suits my workflow quite well.
      So now I stick with Gnome 3.10 (and 3.12 soon enough) and Cinnamon seems to be good enough for anybody I hook up Linux with (close enough to Windows like they're used to.)

    11. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by Spacelord · · Score: 1

      I recently switched to Mint Cinnamon, but my Kubuntu setup before that looked pretty much like that SuSE screenshot.

    12. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      vtwm, baby. Stable for more than years, handles virtual screens to enhance your usable desktop space for multiple projects, and uses no noticeable resources on stupid and inconsistent bloated toolbars.

                            http://www.vtwm.org/

    13. Re:KDE, the one we want to love by Barsteward · · Score: 1

      look and feel is still personal, try configuring the look and feel of Dolphin before moaning about it. I don;t like Unity colours, whats wrong with a task bar if it does the job you want it to do? again its all personal taste. every desktop is easy to use. click an icon it loads a program, thats the same for all DEs. if you prefer a DE that removes all the config from you then fine for you, don't diss other DEs because you have taste issues

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
  7. Sweet! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Great news! OpenSuSE is a terrific distro and having the latest KDE packages will make it nearly perfect. I'm going to be changing my repositories as soon as these new ones are available.

    1. Re:Sweet! by x_t0ken_407 · · Score: 1

      I think I'll need to try out OpenSUSE, just for this reason. I've been using Fedora 20 lately and surprisingly there's been very few issues, which is contrary to impression I got back when I was using 12 & 13.

  8. Debian testing is a bad idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The way Debian works, testing is the worst one to use. You will have some ancient packages, some we ones and it's not really stable either.
    Unstable is contrary to its name in fact both more up-to-date and more stable than testing.

  9. TDE, the one you'll probably love by Stormbringer · · Score: 1

    I loved KDE 3.5, and would spend weeks customizing everything to look exactly like I wanted.
    It worked perfectly, I had all the right applications and buttons at the right place.

    Then you should be quite happy with the Trinity desktop, which is the KDE-approved and-assisted maintenance/improvement fork of KDE 3.5.10. I am. They're up to 3.5.13.2 now, with release 3.5.14 in the works.

    1. Re:TDE, the one you'll probably love by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd have been happy with TDE if it had actually had 4 more years of development. I should still try it but no composting, etc. I wanted 3.5 to continue to evolve but...

  10. Spyware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought I read recently that openSUSE was incorporated with spyware.

  11. Take yer meds next time Zontar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Zontar's "touched in the head": schizophrenic multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p... now go take those meds, you whacko!

  12. You've been taking your meds that long Zontar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Zontar's "touched in the head": schizophrenic multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p... now go take those meds, you whacko!

  13. Zontar caught in an endless loop (of meds) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And his own "loopiness" - Zontar's "touched in the head": schizophrenic multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p... now go take those meds, you whacko!