OpenSUSE 12.1 Released 174
MasterPatricko writes "The openSUSE project is proud to present the release of openSUSE 12.1! This release represents more than eight months of work by our international community and brings you the best Free Software has to offer. Improvements include the latest GNOME 3.2 desktop as well as the newest from KDE, XFCE and LXDE; your ownCloud made easy with mirall; Snapper-shots of your file system on btrfs; and much, much more. Other notable changes include moving from sysvinit to systemd, improving the boot process, and being built on GCC 4.6.2 including link-time optimization. More packages than ever are available from the openSUSE instance of the Open Build Service, and soon you'll be able to create customized respins on SUSE Studio."
I may give this a go... (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus, the last time I used JAD 1.0 (based on Suse) it was rock solid. Anybody know the specifics of what's installed besides desktop environs? That seems to be all they've listed at their site.
Re:choices are good (Score:0, Interesting)
Then you are a zealot and are no longer a reasonable person.
Have your pet spayed or neutered (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it me or has Gnome 3x neutered the desktop? When I first used Gnome 3 with F15 I really liked the clean and cutting edge look. But 15 minutes later I choked on the fact that Gnome 3 had me bent over and handcuffed... doing things the way they wanted.
I looked at the screenshot and couldn't really tell if I was looking at Fedora or openSUSE, save the open browser content.
I LOVE what Linux Mint has done. They've incorporated the best of Gnome 3 and greatly improve the experience.
Oh, and YEAH for openSUSE, high-five!
It works nicely! (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been using it on x86 and x86-64 systems for a month or so and it is working quite well.
The announcement above neglected to mention that its running the 3.1.0 kernel and that plus the new compiler/libraries will make life interesting for those of us that live and work in the IT world. Other updates like systemd will also have interesting consequences. Most apps seem fairly happy living and playing on 12.1 however those using CommVault may expect some real pain.
For those that use RHEL and SLES/SLED in their enterprise this is a good introduction of things to come. For some of us that will be sooner rather than later. SLES/SLED 11 SP2, slated to show up in the first quarter of 2012, will be running the 3.0.7 kernel so playing with 12.1 now will give you a taste of things to come.
Re:choices are good (Score:4, Interesting)
Once a company is tainted by working with the likes of Microsoft or say Oracle, that's it.
Oracle isn't even in the same ballpark as MS. MS has actively been trying to harm Linux and OSS with its patent extortion and racketeering, and only now has someone (Barnes & Noble) finally stood up to them and release the info on the patents in question (which of course have turned out to be totally bogus with tons of prior art not to mention total lack of non-obviousness). MS has been actively hostile to Linux and OSS ever since these became popular, and is only getting worse. What has Oracle done to OSS? Nothing I can think of. They even bought Sun and kept OpenOffice.org as an OSS product; of course, they handled it in a totally incompetent manner causing a fork, and are now throwing in the towel, but this doesn't come close to being a malicious action like those of MS. Oracle hasn't been much of a friend to OSS, but they haven't been much of an enemy of it either. They even have their own Linux distro that they try to push with their proprietary database software. They also bought MySQL and haven't killed that or taken it proprietary either. Honestly, I don't know what's with all the Oracle hatred. They have a few OSS products that they semi-competently (or incompetently for OO.o) handle, they haven't been suing Linux users over bogus patents, what's the problem?
Re:Have your pet spayed or neutered (Score:5, Interesting)
I looked at the screenshot and couldn't really tell if I was looking at Fedora or openSUSE, save the open browser content.
This is by design. The Gnome developers want all Gnome installations to look exactly the same. Jon McCan't even said in an interview that he doesn't want you using any themes or customizing your Gnome desktop in any way, because this diminishes Gnome's look, and other people watching you at your computer won't be able to tell it's Gnome. Basically, the Gnome devs are trying to copy Apple and their totally non-customizable UIs, thinking that if it works for Apple, then it'll work for them too.
Re:Woot! (Score:4, Interesting)
I assume you have never actually used openSUSE.
Its a European distro so is never on the American "list" of distos that are recommend to try. Novel going with microsoft never helped though that's the excuse to troll it now rather than having any current justification that MS has effected openSUSE.
KDE 3 back as DE choice (Score:4, Interesting)
Given the general negative reception of GNOME 3 (and Unity and to a lesser extend still also KDE 4), it surprises me that I haven't seen it much mentioned on the net that KDE 3 is back as a DE choice. Now if only the MATE (GNOME 2 continuation) was also included...
Nope, I tried SuSE (Score:5, Interesting)
Ultimately I ended up using Ubuntu, because at one point there was a controversy over Fedora with regards to versions not being supported very long or at all, or being bleeding-edge-only, and I wanted something a little more stable. I also got bogged down in RPM hell because I did want to try certain packages that were not officially supported, and repositories that packaged them didn't have common dependencies, and although I tried compiling the software myself, there were compile issues I had trouble resolving for certain software.
Now I'm trying out Debian, to gain experience and progress in my knowledge of the GNU/Linux platform on something that's not too far off from what I'm using now.
Re:I may give this a go... (Score:4, Interesting)
In particular, it was the first program that offered me a concise but inclusive list of all the commands that I would need on my system, and the packages that provide them, before going on to compile at all. No crappy 'configure, oops you're missing this, retry' business. If only this requirement had been made a gnu standard ages ago!
Re:Nope, I tried SuSE (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft Zealot Here... (Score:4, Interesting)
So, I'm struggling with the basics, but learning a little every day. Does anyone know a decent Windows-Linux Conversion guide which explains the parallels between the two - such as how to install drivers, where the hell is 'Program Files', what do I do if I want to install software but it's not an rpm or whatever it is suse uses. (Damn, I miss MSIs & EXEs!)
Also, is there any mail client I can use to connect to my exchange server for work email? (using MAPI \ RPC over HTTPS)
This is quite a lot of fun, and I've noticed that it seems to render flash video nicer than windows, BBC iPlayer HD is a bit stuttery on windows, but is smooth as silk over here.
Any hints and tips gratefully received!
Re:choices are good (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason why Windows fonts look ugly on FreeTypeis because they have embedded hints that are hand-tuned to look pixel-perfect on Windows font rasterizer (with or without ClearType). Unless your font renderer works exactly the same as ClearType, you won't have them looking as good.
I Started Using Tumbleweed A Week Ago... (Score:3, Interesting)