openSUSE 11.2 Released 207
An anonymous reader tips news that openSUSE 11.2 has reached its official release. You can get it from their download page, or just grab the torrents (32-bit, 64-bit).
"openSUSE 11.2 will come with the latest version 2.6.31 of the Linux kernel, the beating heart of every openSUSE system. The default file system of openSUSE will be switched to the new Ext4 as well. Of course, openSUSE will continue to support Ext3 and other filesystems — but on install, new partitions will automatically be designated Ext4. ... Desktops and servers can use the same kernel, but it's better to tune the kernel for the job at hand. That's why openSUSE now includes a desktop kernel specially tuned for desktop users. ... In addition to the work of the openSUSE Project in the desktop, openSUSE 11.2 includes the latest versions of the two desktop environments, KDE 4.3 and GNOME 2.28. KDE users will enjoy the new Firefox KDE integration, OpenOffice.org KDE4 integration, consistent KDE artwork and all standard applications being ported to KDE4 including KNetworkManager, Amarok, Digikam, k3b, Konversation and more."
Why switch to openSuse? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is nice and all but that's a pretty standard distro release, can anybody tell me why i would want to switch from a similar distro, say ubuntu 9.10 or fedora 12 to openSuse?
sure I could try them all but there is only so much time i want to spend installing/setting stuff up.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Who...cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
(I tend to think the other way: How can I run Nautilus, KTorrent, KRDC, and GMountISO in Windows.)
Re:Why switch to openSuse? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure a few reasons;
OpenSUSE has one of the best KDE4 setups. They've done a lot of work into making KDE4 really shine. The Firefox KDE integration is AWESOME, and not something I am sure the other distros are shipping with. There is also additional work above and beyond stock on OpenOffice and such. A great attention to detail on the theming (not that you can't change that on Ubuntu and Fedora).
Zypper is hands down the best RPM tool and I would say on par or superior to Apt. Definitely a step over yum.
Nomad provide an RDP server for Linux that supports Compiz, not sure if that's been ported to other distros.
iFolder (if you care about that) is so far only packaged for SUSE, I believe.
Also Yast is great to administer your system if you're not command line friendly. It used to be atrocious, but now is very much decent. I still don't use it that much, but it has an appeal to people (especially our Windows friends). Overall it's a solid distro and I would say on par with Ubuntu and others.
Re:Why switch to openSuse? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a bit more stable that Fedora, or at least that's been my opinion from using it. It's well balanced new enough packages but it doesn't change every 6 months and when it does change it's possible and fairly easy to upgrade.
It has java packages, mono packages, all the dev tools you can image. The repository collection they have is fairly rich and complete as well. Flash runs in Firefox, there are VLC package with video codecs and all the good stuff. Honestly, to me as a user and I've sort of done my time being a bleeding heart libre/free software advocate and monk, it's not ideological, it's simply a platform and it works pretty darn well. I know people get butt hurt about mono and java and who Novell has done business with but it works out of the box, has damn never everything I need and it has all the fluff that is nice to have. If you've got some ideological feelings, you'll be happier with FC12. Firefox is called "Firefox" in OpenSuse. I believe it has a webkit based browser now as well. Opera is in the non-OSS repo. It has a non-OSS repo.
As far as comparing it to Ubuntu? It's RPM based. It seems like a very competitive product with Ubuntu but I couldn't say which is "better."
It's a high quality, community driven distribution with all the bells and whistles.
Upstart, DeviceKit, etc. (Score:3, Interesting)
Congrats first and foremost to everyone who worked on this release.
I use and love openSUSE. I've been running betas of 11.2 for a while now.
My only gripe is that openSUSE still apparently hasn't switched to Upstart, nor DeviceKit. I assume Novell's layoffs last year are the reason that openSUSE seems to be falling a little behind in feature adoption. I hope this isn't a growing trend.
Re:Ext4 makes me nervous as Hell. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ext4 is merely an extension (that is mostly backwards-compatible) of Ext3. Ext4 was born out of patches that were intended for Ext3. In 2006, the decision was made to split some of the newer features being pushed into Ext3 under the namespace of Ext4. It isn't like they started development on Ext4 in 2006. In 2006, there was a usable file system from the day it was annouced as a "new" project.
It was pretty damn stable then, and even more stable now.
I've been running it for 3 years. The age of a product does not always equate directly to stability. There are old releases that aren't very stable, and then there are projects that are well designed, and are stable pretty much from day 1.
Ext4 is one such project. However, if you're terrified of Ext4 eating your dog, you're welcome to run Fat32 if it makes you feel better.
Re:Who...cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's almost like you blame Linux for the fact your hardware vendor tries so hard to lock out 3rd party support.
You're right. Some people do. Because Linux "evangelists" like to say that Linux can do everything Windows can do.. .except better, AND it's more secure, AND it's free, AND it has a GREAT community.
MOST of which is true. It may or may not be better, it is more secure and it's free and it does have a good community (there are plenty of Windows communities as well, of course).
But it does not do everything Windows can do, because not everything runs on Linux. And most people do not want to lose hardware that works well for them for the sake of switching to Linux. Like iPods and iPhones.
Sure, blame Apple and not Linux for the actual hardware issue (interesting: Apple is a great company at Slashdot until it is convenient for it not to be a great company at Slashdot :) my experience, anyways)... but blame Linux fans for claiming things that either aren't true or are only true if you are more committed to using Linux than using your existing proprietary hardware. Some people care more about their existing hardware that works well and that they like than whether or not it works with Linux. And it's a perfectly valid reason, too. Doesn't mean Linux is bad, it just means some people have different priorities.
Re:Ext4 makes me nervous as Hell. (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't be obtuse. FAT is a horrible file system. He's going to stick with ext3.
A simple Google search [google.com] shows that many people and many different distros have experienced data corruption and data loss and it has been attributed to anything from bugs in ext4 to the kernel not behaving as the ext4 developers were expecting due to specific configurations made for a given distro. Some people are very paranoid about data loss. Using ext3 instead is his choice, and choice is what Linux is all about.
Re:Who...cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
As for me "pretending that" Linux can do everything Average Joe wants, I don't. It does what I want, it works for my mother. It works for my two boys.
There are things that are needed - for those I run VirtualBox:
http://www.perfectreign.com/stuff/2009/virtualbox_xp_vb6.jpg
and can do such tasks as Visual Basic 6.0 development on XP machines. The rest can pretty much be done using FOSS under Ubuntu.
Re:Who...cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
You are saying as if it is a bad thing.
Isolated, learning one new way to do something is an acceptable cost. But Linux is to many death by a thousand cuts when it comes to that. I dabbled with Linux for ~7 years before I finally decided to switch and there was many reasons for that. But one of them was the total lack of any familiar application, even though I was fairly convinced Linux probably had some sort of application like that (in retrospect, sometimes a doubtful conclusion) but it was always too much new. I can set off some hours to learn something new, I can't set off a month all at once to learn everything new. It was really only the early experiences with Vista that pushed me over the edge, thinking this wasn't the way forward. Now that I know how to use Linux properly I wouldn't switch back, but that wall is too tall. Not one brick individually but all of the piled on top of each other.