OpenSUSE 11.0 Released

Nate D writes "It's here: a new major release of Novell's community-supported distro is now available, and can be downloaded from the mirrors. Linux Format has a hands-on look at the new installer, SLAB menu and Compiz Fusion, and weighs up whether the distro can fight competition from Ubuntu and Fedora. Is this the start of a new era for SUSE?"

I will not

[by Anonymous Coward]

I will not use it on my box. I will not use it with a fox.

Re:I will not

[russlar (1122455)]

I will not use it on my box.

I don't want to know what you are or are not doing with your box.

Re:

[gardyloo (512791)]

This is slashdot. Take the education where you can get it!

Re:I will not

[by Anonymous Coward]

Hell of an argument isn't it?

"No one ever got fired for buying microsoft."

No one has ever been fired for drinking a glass of warm urine in the privacy of their own home. Doesn't make it the right decision or a pleasant experience.

Well, at least I don't think anyone's been fired for that...

Re:I will not

[larry bagina (561269)]

plenty of people have been modded down over a nice glass of fristy piss, though. On any given day, there's probably half a dozen people bragging their frosty piss on slashdot.

Re:

[mgblst (80109)]

Yeah, all fine. I have been doing it for years. But then post a couple of innocent pictures on facebook, and the shit hits the fan. People are strange.

Re:

[moronikos (595352)]

Budweiser is close enough.

Re:

[Ilgaz (86384)]

While you joke, I checked the Novell CTO's blog about what he would say about new SUSE.

"Hanging out at Microsoft
I will be at Microsoft on Thursday and Friday, and only have meetings on Thursday afternoon.

I would love to meet other hackers. If you want to meet, discuss, talk, drop me an email:

Posted by Miguel de Icaza on 18 Jun 2008"

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Jun-18.html [tirania.org]

What is it called if something is so sad that you can't even risk joking about it?

Re:I will not

[Fast Thick Pants (1081517)]

What is it called if something is so sad that you can't even risk joking about it?

Transportation Security Administration?

Probably not

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Is this the start of a new era for SUSE?"

Probably not. Competition between major distros doesn't really exist, because all features are available for all distros. Neither Ubuntu, nor Fedora nor SuSE specialize in anything in particular, so in the end, there's not much difference between them aside from package management and menu layout.

Re:Probably not

[allcar (1111567)]

Don't underestimate package management - it is critical. It is the main differentiator between distros and it is the key to Ubuntu's current success. It's also one of the main reasons that Linux is so much more stable than Windows.

Re:Probably not

[caluml (551744)]

Don't underestimate package management - it is critical. It is the main differentiator between distros and it is the key to Ubuntu's current success.

That's not what I'd have said, as it's the same as Debian. I'd have said Ubuntu's success was due to having little things pop up and ask you if you want to install mp3 codecs when the user tries to play an mp3, or Flash installer helpers, etc.

Re:Probably not

[drinkypoo (153816)]

The whole fucking world has been saying it wanted Debian with updated repositories and cutting-edge software (but that has actually been tested by a human at leastonce.) Ubuntu comes along and gives it to us and people are confused about why it is successful? It's because they give us what we ask for!

Re:Probably not

[PReDiToR (687141)]

In a lot of opinions, it is.

When I changed over (full time) from XP to openSUSE 10.2 I could happily leave my PC on for days, use suspend (RAM and disk) many more times than under XP without a reboot to "freshen up" and I haven't yet seen a SEGFAULT that couldn't be fixed with a rc<service> restart.

In short, my experience is not the same as yours. Have you got odd hardware or an overclocked system?
Full speed BIOS settings, AMD/VIA, ATI GFX (8xAGP, 256M), ATA133 (x6) and everything runs peachy. Under XP having the AMD/VIA combo would cause the OS to crap itself regularly no matter which drivers I used, and I have tried a lot of them.

Now I have a copy of Win2K in VirtualBox running seamless mode for when I need Photoshop. With the recent v1.0 release of WINE I may even lose that ...

And to top it all, Linux has the free edition of NX [nomachine.com] that is far quicker and immeasurably more secure than VNC.

Re:

[G Money (12364)]

FWIW, there is a nice search tool for finding packages for OpenSUSE at Webpin [opensuse-community.org]. They've made adding repositories much easier and faster now in 11 as well (zypper is light speed ahead of the old package management tools in OpenSUSE).

Re:Probably not

[mikesd81 (518581)]

Open suse has it's own repository, as well as the packman community and these [benkevan.com]. And you can even simply do yast --install and it'll go get it, or if you have a package you can do a local install and it will resolve the dependencies.

Re:Probably not

[Anarke_Incarnate (733529)]

Not to mention, with the 1 Click Install feature, you can also set up the repository for the application you found online very easily. If you install the 3 most popular repos you have nothing to search for that you cannot find right from YaST(within reason).

Re:Probably not

[catscan2000 (211521)]

SuSE does offer YaST, which is a very easy-to-use system configuration tool. I need to learn more about Ubuntu, but as far as I know, YaST integrates system configuration bits in a more coherent and consistent manner than other distributions do. YaST was open-sourced at some point in the recent past, so other distros might possibly use it now or eventually, too.

For me, the only downside to SuSE is its slow and memory-inefficient package management system. It gets substantially better with each release, so it might be approaching the speed of apt-get on Ubuntu, but in 10.4, it wasn't quite there yet in performance. In features, however, it's definitely there :-).

Re:

[PReDiToR (687141)]

I personally find YaST package management easier to use than Synaptic.

Other than that, as has been said, all features are available on all distros, so it is just down to personal choice, and what you are used to working with. RPMs and DEBs are very similar once you get them on your machine, you can even use alien to install them.

Been with (open)SuSE since v8.0 so I know my way around this particular distro better than the *buntu boxen that I admin.

Re:Probably not

[chill (34294)]

SuSE is a proponent of AppArmor, whereas Red Hat is big into SELinux. If you're big into security, this is a major difference.

http://www.novell.com/linux/security/apparmor/selinux_comparison.html [novell.com]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SELinux [fedoraproject.org]

Re:

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

Any reason you can't install AppArmor into Red Hat and SELinux into SuSE?

No, didn't think so.

Re:

[chill (34294)]

Red Hat's support for SELinux is superior to SuSE's. They are much more active in the development of SELinux than AppArmor. The opposite is true regarding AppArmor. SuSE is much more active in the development and support than Red Hat.

Yes, you can add either to the other. But there is far more expertise for AppArmor at SuSE considering they acquired it when they bought Immunix. And there is far more expertise for SELinux at Red Hat, considering how deeply they are involved with it.

And then there is this

SUSE has more Enterprise-focus

[SplatMan_DK (1035528)]

Competition between major distros doesn't really exist, because all features are available for all distros.

While some may argue that SUSE is bad as a matter of principle (because of their deal wil Microsoft, which secured them a truckload of cash), it is my experience that SUSE has more focus on Enterprise needs than most other distros.

So yes - perhaps all features are available for all distros. But not all are actually implemented/moved to another distro. Most corporate users like the way YAST (packet manager) is working, and they also enjoy some of the built-in features for central management and integratio

Re:SuSE's firewall is best

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

I've used all three (U, F, & S) and keep going back to SuSE because of the SuSEfirewall2 configuration feature. It gives you one straightforward (fairly) easy to understand text config file that governs how the iptables rules get set up.

Bah. Back when I started building Linux firewalls, we didn't have fancy firewall building scripts or GUIs. We had to know what we were doing with iptables and grok the difference between say, REJECTing a packet and DROPing a packet.

So iptables is iptables is iptables to me.

You kids and your fancy configurators.

Now get off of my lawn!

Re:

[Vectronic (1221470)]

"I thought, ... chances are a linux box doesnt need a firewall"

Firewalls arent always used just for inbound attacks, what about using it as an adblocker, or maybe you only want certain computers in a network to communicate, or maybe you are just a little overly paranoid...

Besides, as Linux popularity grows, it will necessitate the need for more firewalls/security, especially with recent blunders with Flash, et al, there will be more of those aswell...

Re:

[setagllib (753300)]

Firewalls are 100% useless against Flash, which loads via outbound HTTP just like the rest of your web content. I recommend disabling Flash entirely or using an open source implementation like swfdec (which is only slightly more functional than just disabling Flash :P)

Re:

[Vectronic (1221470)]

Oh, and as for blocking flash... you can easily use your Firewall to block a certain IP/DNS that distributes Flash based Ads on a specific (black list) basis, there are a lot of things you may need/want to have Flash enabled for...

Re:Probably not

[houghi (78078)]

I understand the sentiment. However the installer has gotten a complete overhaul. It is fast. Seriously fast. I have been running since Alpha and am still seriously impressed with the speed they have created. It was one of the focus points and I think they have succeeded.

As an added bonus or as a disadvantage (depending on how you feel) you can install things with a one-click install (also via CLI) that sorts out the repositories for you and all the rest.

Oh, the installer is seriously fast. Really fast.

That said, it could still be that you don't like it. That is why there are different distributions.

Just give it a try (install the live version). It is unfair to think that nothing has changed.

Re:Probably not

[HermMunster (972336)]

I do fresh installs of Windows XP for customers. Even with a recovery CD one has a huge amount of time to commit to doing one.

For instance, the recovery can take about 45 min to an hour (or more). Then you have to clean all the trial-ware junk off it. Then install programs such as an antivirus, adware-spyware detection and removal tools, a real firewall, probably a replacement for the browser (Mozilla Firefox). Then because the computer can't do much more than browse the web without the trial-ware crap I install open office, google earth, pidgin, and a slew of other open source products. After that I have to spend the next two hours installing updates (install reboot, install, reboot, install, reboot, etc). Then of course you do the stuff that everyone else does--set up mail, copy over backed up data, etc.

With a regular install of XP you can skip the removal of the trial-ware crap but you still have to do all the other stuff mentioned above. And that takes hours.

With Linux it takes about 15 minutes to get the install done (that includes repartitioning the drive to dual boot with Windows, and the installation of those same Open Source programs. Then it takes about another 15-20 minutes to download the updates from on line.

From that you configure things just like you like them. Only with Linux it's more fun and the options are always free. I don't have to worry about paying some company money to add some nifty ability to my desktop. And I don't have to worry about virus protection nor about whether I have good firewall protection. Security is pretty sound unless you go opening up the doors to everyone and the way linux is designed it helps to protect you from yourself.

I say the winner for speed and capabilities goes to Linux, any day!

Torrent link

[by Anonymous Coward]

Folks, please download it via BitTorrent:
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.0/iso/torrent/openSUSE-11.0-DVD-i386.torrent [opensuse.org]

I think most of the downloads are being done selfishly via HTTP or FTP, as I've been in the swarm for almost 1h and the speeds are quite low, there are only 60 peers.

Re:

[RiotingPacifist (1228016)]

your doing it wrong.
*encrypt your conections,
*keep your number of connections limited
*dont upload more than (find the ISPs throttle spot here)kb/s

and you should be fine

screen shots

[linuxbeta (837266)]

http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.php?linux_distribution_sm=openSUSE%2011.0 [thecodingstudio.com]

Yay, no Gnome top-menu

[bestinshow (985111)]

Instead of having the typical top and bottom panel arrangement, OpenSUSE sticks with a single panel along the bottom of the screen, combining the application launcher with the taskbar and notification areas.

HURRAH! Finally. I hate that top menu bar in Ubuntu, it looks so amateurish with those Firefox/Mail/Help icons rammed up against each other.

Shame the review didn't use KDE, as that's the good point about SUSE as far as I am concerned.

From a Noob's point of View

[Corpuscavernosa (996139)]

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a Linux noob. I've played around with countless distros to find a great solution for my older (1.6GHz, 512M RAM, 40Gig HD) laptop, but I have almost zero command line experience and I wanted something that was easy to configure and just worked. I downloaded the beta version of OpenSUSE 11 and it just straight worked. Autoconfigure was great, wireless was perfect right out of the gate, etc.

For a Linux lover but amateur, I loved it for it's simplicity and ease of installation.

Article gets at least three things wrong

[Whitemice (139408)]

1. openSUSE doesn't need a new era, it is doing just fine.

2. The Microsoft pact hasn't alienated any of the community that matters. There are fundamentalists that gripe and whine and spit about every intellectual property issue that they *perceive* reduces openness. And there are people who write code. There isn't much overlap at all between the coder and the fundamentalist - so there whining and spitting should just be takes as the meaningless noise that it is.

3. Yast is *extremely* modular and not in the least bit monolithic - one just has to look at the Yast packages to know that. It even has multiple front-ends. This makes as much charge as the people who accuse Evolution of being monolithic (it a highly modular app that consists mostly of cooperating components). Another Yast plus is that it works and coverts almost all configuration issues right down to certificate management. That makes SuSE / openSUSE the only distro with a comprehensive management tool.

Re:

[amnezick (1253408)]

Oops, run kid

Re:

[PReDiToR (687141)]

My T22 (P3 900, 256, WiFi) runs openSUSE 10.3 with either KDE 3 or Joe's Window Manager [joewing.net] that I discovered by trying out DamnSmallLinux [damnsmalllinux.org].
Basically all I use my laptop for is running NX to my home machine, so a light fast small desktop is the best solution.

On the compatibility side, I do have to run ndiswrapper to make my Linksys PCMCIA WiFi work, but once it is in, KNetworkManager takes care of all the complicated stuff.

Re:Justin

[catscan2000 (211521)]

At the risk of being labeled a troll, I typically tell colleagues who ask about the Microsoft deal that Apple has numerous patent and other technology licensing agreements with Microsoft, and yet we don't see a groundswell of people on Slashdot calling Apple on the carpet for their Microsoft agreements.

In response, I've heard that the difference is that Apple doesn't pretend to be fully open-source whereas Novell does to an extent, though Apple does have an open-source kernel and other bits in addition to a proprietary system. Similarly, Novell's SuSE (not openSuSE) is a product that users typically need to pay for. From a high-level view, this looks like both companies offer a proprietary system as well as an open-source subset of that proprietary system.

As a result -- at least, from that simplification of the issue -- I think that anti-SuSE people on Slashdot are treating Novell unfairly versus Apple. I'm not a fan of the Microsoft deal, either, but I do like openSuSE on technical and, especially, usability grounds, and that is why I both advocate for and use it both at home and at work.

Now I'm off to download the latest version :-)

(there goes my karma, though :-(. Please be nice!)

Re:Justin

[houghi (78078)]

In response, I've heard that the difference is that Apple doesn't pretend to be fully open-source whereas Novell does to an extent,

Indeed not all from Novell is open. However they are working hard to do so. They have the build service, that you can use and/or download so that you can make your own distribution, if you so desire.
Where Redhat tried to block CentOS, Novell actively helps people to make their own openSUSE and SUSE based distribution.

Also openSUSE make a clear difference between OSS and things that are NON-OSS. It is then up to the user to decide wether you want to install it or not.

Novell has opend a lot of their code already. Indeed not yet everything. However they are working on that as well.

Should we also dump reality? Or competition?

[SplatMan_DK (1035528)]

The only way SUSE will start a new era is if they dump Microsoft as a partner.

I respectfully disagree. I know many people have an almost religious crusade against Microsoft any company they are associated with - but I think there is a wider consideration which many people forget. Novells core business is connecting technologies which are for different reasons not already connected. And for the most part the products they connect are a mixture of (F)OSS and classic closed-source commercial software.

While you may disagree with their goals, and be almost religiously in opposition of them, I think they do more good than bad. They ultimately ensure that the customer/consumer has a wider choice in products and technologies, and they are IMHO they key to breaking the monopolistic world domination which certain vendors enjoy.

I honestly don't understand why some people believe Novells projects (for example Mono and Moonlight) are "bad" while similar cross-platform initiatives (such as WINE and SAMBA) are "good". I also don't understand why people see IBM's investments in Open Source projects as "good" while Novells are "bad".

In a free market, the users and customers benefit from having the widest range of products to choose from. Any company or community who is engaged in software projects which enhance portability and interconnectivity are "good" the way I see it. Especially when they release them under open source licenses - like Novell does.

Given the allready widespread use of .NET applications, being able to run them on a Linux cluster ensures that Linux can be a more attractive choice in a given scenario. The ability to provide end-users with Linux desktops which can run Win32 apps (WINE), read PDF documents, browse webpages created with Silverlight and use homepages full of fancy Shockwave Flash elements, makes it easier for a large Enterprise to choose Linux (any distro) as a client platform. In my view that enhances the competition - which is (almost) always good for the customers.

:-)

- Jesper

Re:New Era?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Yea, because by running OSX, you're clearly a saint when it comes to free vs proprietary software.

Re:New Era?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Apple made a big stink about patents a number of years ago wrt spring-loaded folders in the Nautilus file manager.

Apple has also purposely broken the iPod database so that Free Software iPod software broke after the update.

Apple also have a similar deal with Microsoft as Novell has.

I know, I know... "Apple shiny. Me like shiny" makes it all better, right? Whatever.

Re:

[Dog-Cow (21281)]

Apple may make a big stink about patents, but they actually point to the patents they hold. MS just handwaves and spreads FUD.

Only an Apple hater would think Apple would purposefully expend developer time just to break an open source project that undoubtedly sold more iPods.

Re:

[Ilgaz (86384)]

Well, functionality?

Lets see... Nokia just shipped "Nokia Maps Downloader" application which is not absolutely photoshop class complex application. It is coded in .NET 3.0 . Where is the Linux version so people having same functionality as Windows will run?

Look to REAL WORLD, not some Mono blogs or Mono clone coders friends applications who are hosted at Novell themselves.

Re:New Era?

[Ilgaz (86384)]

If something is coded in a true multiplatform framework, it ships on _every_ platform that Framework supports. Mono gang is just being abused by Microsoft to claim their junk is multiplatform.

Want to see a multi platform framework? http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

If Nokia had brain to use a true multiplatform framework, that "Maps downloader" could work inside ANY BROWSER of ANY OS. It is so sad that MS manages to trap people even in age of 2008. Of course, some must be clever and get paid for it. I am worried about the actual naive ones thinking MS would produce or let produce anything equal to their pyramid scheme named Windows.

Re:

[Anarke_Incarnate (733529)]

They give MORE than Ubuntu does. Ubuntu works off of the hard work of the Debian team and enhances UI look and feel. The underpinnings are worked on the Debian and the kernel hackers, et al. Novell is one of the biggest contributers to the kernel, Gnome, KDE and.... THEY are part of the Open Invention Network, who strive to PROTECT F/OSS users from patents.

A crusade against cross-platform initiatives?

[SplatMan_DK (1035528)]

One basic question. Is Mono and Moonlight a selected by default option or not?

I can't say for SUSE 11, but for 10.x neither Mono or Moonlight was installed by default. They were available through the YAST package manager.

I would use original XP or Vista rather than a thing which is made by their cloning partners. At least they are original.

It is sad that you come to such a conclusion without at least evaluating the technical potential of these projects, and perhaps Novells reasons for engaging in them. It sounds almost like you are on a personal crusade against commercial vendors who are in the cross-platform / portability business.

Novell has made it its core business to connect technologies wh

Re:Why people should stay away from it

[SplatMan_DK (1035528)]

and we all know SuSE is now at least half-evil.

Would you care to explain WHY? I mean, really explain. With rational arguments - not emotional, religious or similar irrational explanations. Honestly, give me SOLID ARGUMENTS here. And perhaps a few examples. Did somebodys business close because of the MS/Novell deal? Did someone get sued? Did FOSS projects die? Did customers end up with fewer choices? What????
:-)

your boss says "let's try a Linux distro for a while", please, don't suggest OpenSuSE

A good recommendation in a corporate setting is always based on a good business case. I would be happy to evaluate your arguments for not choosing SUSE for a company, if they are solid and based on rational arguments.

Untill then I will most certainly recommend SUSE if the business case supports it. And in some cases it will - no questions asked. Novell makes great cross-platform products, so if a company needs, say, a cluster of servers capable of running both J2EE and .NET, it would make a lot of sense comparing SUSE with MONO/JBOSS vs Windows 2008 with BEA (just an example, insert other similar server-cases here).

Or perhaps we could imagine a company wanting to convert their outdated XP clients with Linux clients in order to postpone hardware upgrades (which would be needed in order to migrate to Vista). Perhaps the ability to show webpages with Silverlight elements was an important criteria? What about browsers capable of showing PDF documents, MS Word documents, Flash content, etc? All these are cross-platform initiatives, and I honestly believe that Linux won't make in into the corporate environment without these.

I don't understand why some people think Novell and their projects (for example Mono and Moonlight) are "bad" while other cross-platform initiatives (such as WINE and SAMBA) are "good". I also fail to see why the same people often argue that IBM's investments in Open Source projects are "good" while Novells are "bad". The discussion about Microsoft/Linux/Novell needs to be elevated to a level where it is based on the same standard you would demand in other more scientific debates. Drop the emotional and irrational arguments. Give me facts and examples from real life.

Users and customers benefit from a free market. It gives them the widest range of products to choose from. Any community or company who is engaged in software projects which enhance portability and interconnectivity are "good" as far as I am concerned. Even more so when they are releases them under open source licenses - like MONO and Moonlight.

:-)
- Jesper

Re:

[FishWithAHammer (957772)]

use Mono today and tomorrow there will be more reasons to move to Windows.

Oh, hell yeah. Because GTK# and QT# work great on Windows, right?

Get a clue before you start whining about OMG TEH MICROSOFTS. I understand that you have a retarded knee-jerk hatred of Microsoft. Carrying that over to Novell (who, might I add, went to bat against SCO--or have you already forgotten that?) because they support Mono, a tool for interoperability that doesn't suck nearly as much as Java, is amazingly retarded.

Novell's business is making systems talk to each other. They don't really care if thos

Re:

[PReDiToR (687141)]

preditor@<mybox>:~> uname -a
Linux <mybox> 2.6.25.7-PReDiToR #1 Thu Jun 19 04:44:46 BST 2008 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

Don't like the openSUSE kernel? Don't use it.

Just like that.