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SuSE Businesses

OpenSUSE 11.0 Released 301

Posted by CmdrTaco from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.
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?"
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OpenSUSE 11.0 Released More

OpenSUSE 11.0 Released

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  • I will not (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 19, 2008 @08:51AM (#23855291)
    I will not use it on my box. I will not use it with a fox.

  • Probably not (Score:5, Insightful)

    by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) * on Thursday June 19, 2008 @08:52AM (#23855305) Homepage Journal

    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by allcar ( 1111567 ) on Thursday June 19, 2008 @08:59AM (#23855497)
      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 (Score:5, Informative)

        by caluml ( 551744 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMspamgoeshere.calum.org> on Thursday June 19, 2008 @09:34AM (#23856345) Homepage

        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: (Score:3, Informative)

          by lazy_playboy ( 236084 )

          [ubuntu's package management] ... as it's the same as Debian.
          Well, it uses the same system but I don't entirely agree with you in essence. Ubuntu offers modern packages in a stable format, which is far more labour intensive than Debian's 'old but stable' philosophy.

          I'm not dissing Debian for their approach, but it is quite different to Ubuntu's even though they use the same package management.

        • Re:Probably not (Score:5, Insightful)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday June 19, 2008 @02:36PM (#23862899) Homepage Journal
          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: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Max Littlemore ( 1001285 )

          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.

          No. That stuff is pretty recent.

          I seem to remember the existence of scripts like EasyUbuntu and the like a while back to get that stuff running, although they were a bit dodgy so the command line was preferred in my case. I think that was for the last LTS release.

          I also seem to remember that Ubuntu was already gaining a lar

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by bcrowell ( 177657 )

        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.

        To amplify a little on what you said, what matters for desktop use is:

        1. how well the packaging system works (taking care of dependencies automatically, etc.)
        2. the quality of the packages (e.g., making sure you don't get a situation where application A needs version 3.4 of a ce

    • Re:Probably not (Score:5, Informative)

      by catscan2000 ( 211521 ) on Thursday June 19, 2008 @09:01AM (#23855553)
      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: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )
        When I first used Linux it was redhat, and when I wanted to reconfigure the sound I had to re-install it (I guess knowing sndconf was the command would have helped, but I didn't).

        Then SUSE came with the YaST, and I could "re-install" without actually reinstalling, and much time was saved.

        Of course now all that stuff is real obvious anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

    • SuSE's firewall is best (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      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.

      The Yast system manager is pretty good too, especially the software management section, but then again Ubuntu's Synaptic and apt-get from Debian totally rocks too! I'd love to have OpenSuSE with both Yast and Synaptic together, but I'm too lazy to try to install the Deb
      • I thought, unless your doing something stupid on a desktop or running a server chances are a linux box doesnt need a firewall (all your software is from a trusted source thats pointing out, and theres very little pointing outwards anyway)?
        • "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: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by 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)
            • Yes, but say perhaps some malicious attacker used a vulnerability in something to enable something else, even if they still used typical FTP/HTTP ports you'd (should) notice if there is a bunch of traffic and all you are using is Pidgin or something.

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by 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:SuSE's firewall is best (Score:4, Funny)

        by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) * on Thursday June 19, 2008 @09:47AM (#23856679) Homepage Journal

        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!
        • I only started Linux around 2.4.16 or so, and I learned iptables properly. It's not even hard if you understand networking itself. Now I just have a few general scripts I deploy when I want, including a very simple one just for client deployments to only allow SSH as incoming.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by clampolo ( 1159617 )

        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.

        Not sure if it is what you are looking for, but FireStarter is a pretty easy way to configure you iptables.

    • Re:Probably not (Score:5, Interesting)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Thursday June 19, 2008 @09:14AM (#23855885) Journal
      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: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) *
        Any reason you can't install AppArmor into Red Hat and SELinux into SuSE?

        No, didn't think so.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by 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
        • Absolutely right.

          There is an argument to be made for the way most of the people on the dev team use the software though. Integration is sometimes easier when the functionality has been designed into the distro by the people who created it.

          When I was a SuSE user they always had KDE as their default desktop, and to shoehorn Gnome in just never felt as smooth as RedHat with default Gnome. This is my own experience, negated now by openSUSE having both options available.
    • Neither Ubuntu, nor Fedora nor SuSE specialize in anything in particular

      They may not specialize, but the liklihood of a 3rd party vendor supporting a particular vendor goes RedHat EL, SuSE, Ubuntu, in that order.

      Also, RedHat, my personal least favorite distro, is pretty much the only one I've used for the past 7 years because that is what my employers feel comfy with.

    • 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

    • And given that the package management and menu layout are heavily (for Linux Format) berated in this article, I'd say it's the continuance of the same old era for SuSE...

  • Torrent link (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 19, 2008 @08:55AM (#23855399)
    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.
    • Well as of right now (see posting time), it has 2440 Peers, 200 or so of which im connected to, and 150 Seeds, but only 20 connected.
      Going at about 180 down, 35 up (limited, cause my upload is only 512kbits)

      Grew by about 250 peers, just while typing that...

  • Yay, no Gnome top-menu (Score:3, Funny)

    by bestinshow ( 985111 ) on Thursday June 19, 2008 @09:10AM (#23855755)

    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.
    • You do realize you can install KDE in Ubuntu right? I haven't ever used the Gnome desktop in Ubuntu and have been using Ubuntu for years. Though I do admit I use the Gnome tools... until they crash and die.
  • I downloaded the last beta download (ie not release code) and the experience was quite shocking.

    I run 10.3 on my 2GB Thinkpad T60p and its rock solid. Now I tried 11 and it was like going from XP to Vista. Slow as anything and it kept crashing badly, on a machine that is Suse certified.

    I may download and try the new version but a work to the wise, make sure your backups are good.

    However if you are wanting to have a mess around with Xen, its now built right in, so its not all bad.

  • From a Noob's point of View (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Corpuscavernosa ( 996139 ) on Thursday June 19, 2008 @11:04AM (#23858605)
    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 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Whitemice ( 139408 ) on Thursday June 19, 2008 @11:44AM (#23859581) Homepage
    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.

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