openSUSE 10.2 - A Review
Writing by admin on Sunday, 24 of June , 2007 at 9:59 pm
Recently there has been plenty of news regarding the alpha releases of the next openSUSE release, 10.3. While I will be taking a look at the Alpha 5 or Alpha 6 release in the near future, many users have requested a review of openSUSE 10.2. Released in December 2006, openSUSE 10.2 has been the strong number two performer (according to DistroWatch rankings), but with the recent release of PCLinuxOS 2007 it has fallen to number three. For more information regarding the openSUSE distribution lets get the summary from DistroWatch.
“The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell. Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, this program provides free, easy access to openSUSE, a complete Linux distribution. The openSUSE project has three main goals: make openSUSE the easiest Linux for anyone to obtain and the most widely used Linux distribution; leverage open source collaboration to make openSUSE the world’s most usable Linux distribution and desktop environment for new and experienced Linux users; dramatically simplify and open the development and packaging processes to make openSUSE the platform of choice for Linux developers and software vendors.”
The entire distribution, previously known as SuSE Linux has been around for many years with a very strong and knowledgeable community backing it since the beginning. Once again, this review will be focusing on the capabilities of openSUSE 10.2 without any intervention or further downloads. The operating system is being installed on my Inspiron 8500 notebook.
For the rest of the review follow the link!
Installation
The openSUSE 10.2 images are available in i386 (use this if you don’t know which to use), 64 bit and PPC (power PC) falvours. Unlike most distributions, openSUSE 10.2 is available in a single DVD images, or 5 CD images. While this does allow for KDE, GNOME and other desktop environments to be included in the image, it does require more bandwidth as the DVD image is slightly under 4GB. Fortunately, most people these days are using writable DVDs and have high-speed connections that can deal with a 4GB download in a matter of a couple of hours. For those looking ahead for openSUSE 10.3, the alpha versions are available in both 6 CD and 1 CD flavours.
Site Map The install DVD that I used did not allow me to boot into the OS in live mode, however, there are images available that will allow this. At the beginning of the install the user is presented with the option to install either KDE or GNOME. Lets take a short time-out here to discuss something important about my personal experience. The GNOME implementation is not well-done. The menu system is by far the worst I have come across in my recent dablings because the user has to click an “All Applications” button in the menu to launch a window that shows every application available (albeit organized by type). I feel that by using this implementation of the SLAB menu, new users will be quickly scared off by how difficult it is to access applications. One more caveat before heading back to the review involves taking screenshots. The GNOME implementation actually stripped away features, such as delay, from the screenshot utility. Hopefully someone will comment about the GNOME implementation as I may have just expected something far different.
After the whole GNOME debacle I decided to install the KDE flavour in hopes of getting a fair review completed. In short, the installation process is long. From beginning to end it took just under an hour, compared to the 10-20 minute installations I am used to with my laptop. To prevent flaming, I totally understand why this process takes longer and that is mostly due to far more software packages being available on the images. It will clearly take longer to install 3, 4 or 5 CDs over a single CD.
With that being said, the install process is quite enjoyable. There is a nice slide show that plays concurrently with the installation highlighting specific features as well as offering the ability to look at the details of what software packages are currently being installed. Few details are needed to begin the system installation and once that is complete the computer will reboot and additional information must be entered (ie. user info). As I reside in Canada, something funny popped up when picking my location. There were the usual Eastern, Western, Mountain, and Newfoundland zones (has nothing to do with timezones), but also 2 for Saskatchewan…Eastern Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan. For those who are not familiar with Canadian geography, Saskatchewan is a very slim process and dividing it in east and west is quite comical.
While the install process is much longer than usual, the power to change what packages are installed is very welcomed and has been present on openSUSE for quite some time now. I hope the process for future installments will be along the same lines.
Visuals
The default theme for openSUSE 10.2 KDE is very nicely put together. The background is nice and smooth and the task bar at the bottom is very well put together. The task bar is fairly standard for KDE, but the openSUSE team has done a great job customizing it fit with the rest of the theme, especially with the lizard that changes from green to red when the mouse is over it. Many of the icons are typical for KDE, but this is not a bad thing at all. I am really looking forward to seeing KDE 4 in the next edition of openSUSE (think Oxygen icon-set). Below is a screenshot of the default desktop.
openSUSE 10.2 comes installed with nearly everything most users will be looking for. MP3’s played out-of-the-box with…eek…Real Player, but Kaffeine was unable to play DivX without downloading additional packages. For some reason I thought Real Player had disappeared, but it seems as though the openSUSE team thought it would be a good media player to install. For those looking to use openSUSE as their operating system, I highly recommend downloading MPlayer, VLC or other media players to use.
Thankfully, Firefox and Konqueror are both available as web browsers and Java and the Flash player are already configured (so you can watch your YouTube videos without any intervention). Also, many KDE distributions use Koffice as their default office suite, but openSUSE has decided to use the widely popular OpenOffice 2.0.
When the user clicks the My Computer icon on the desktop they are presented with shortcuts to common folders and system information such as disk info, network status, OS details, CPU info, display info, and memory info. I believe I have seen this same screen in other distributions, but I find it is a very useful starting point for not only accessing commonly used folders, but also to read hardware information. Below is a screenshot of this screen.
The YaST installer is easy to use and most users should not have an issue grabbing whatever software they are looking for. It is also great that .rpm files can be easily installed with openSUSE, thus allowing access to much quality software. I am currently used to using apt-get to install software with my Debian-based distros and really miss that when a distribution does not have that, such as this distro. If you are looking to install software, tweak hardware or configure users/networks the YaST Control Center is a breeze to use. Below is a screenshot of the control center.
Unfortunately, I was unable to get my wireless card (Dell TrueMobile 1300) to work even though it was detected by the hardware manager, but then again, I am used to my 4 year old wifi card not working with various Linux distributions. On a positive note, both stand-by and hibernate (suspend to disk) worked great! These two functions worked better than they have on any other distribution I have recently reviewed.
Conclusion
For those who have requested this review, I hope this has covered what you were looking for; I realize that my reviews do not get into too much technical detail and focus more on the surface of the distributions, but the feedback I receive is mostly positive. Those who are interested in migrating to openSUSE, I definitely feel that 10.2 is worth checking out, but beware that this release has been out since 2006 and a new edition is being released early this Fall. I am looking forward to the next alpha release in mid-July and will pass on my thoughts and feelings of what is expected to come.
It seems as though most of the distributions I review I highly recommend; openSUSE 10.2 is not too different but I do have a few comments to make. Looking for a GNOME environment? Do NOT install openSUSE…I was not happy at all with the implementation and I feel it would take far too long to get to a satisfactory state. That said, the KDE implementation is possibly the best I have seen on any distribution.
Overall, openSUSE 10.2 is great to use and feels as though it runs faster than any other distribution on my laptop. I would highly recommend using 10.2 for Linux beginners or people looking for a great out-of-the-box operating system, even though it does require minimal accompanying downloads. For advanced users, I think that openSUSE should be given a chance and I think many power users are watching the release of 10.3 very closely. I never seem to hear details about KDE 4 without at least a mention of openSUSE 10.3. A final note, the openSUSE community is very welcoming and knowledgeable, very similar to that of the Ubuntu community. If you come across a problem in openSUSE, chances are the solution is a quick search in the forums away.
Head over to the openSUSE website to check out the community and to download the images.
Cole
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Comment by Jason
Made Monday, 25 of June , 2007 at 12:36 am
Couple of thoughts:
1. Nice review
2. Having a disto available as a DVD download is not such a bad thing. After that you can install more apps from it without Internet connection.
3. Personal experience: Suse is the one of the most polished distros out there and the only one so far that installed correctly on all of my home PCs (I have several laptops and desktops of different age and power).
4. I would not attribute their quick fall from #2 spot in Distrowatch to PCLOS or relatively old age of the last release, I would attribute that to their pact with the “evil” and to over-sensitive M$-hating community.
Comment by Aku
Made Monday, 25 of June , 2007 at 3:35 am
Great review!
I agree on the KDE implemention..
On openSUSE it’s the best I’ve seen, even upgrading to KDE 3.5.7 went without any issues..
I really don’t know why they ‘default’ to GNOME nowadays.. KDE used to be the default desktop for Suse, before Novell took over.
Waiting for 10.3, even though I can’t think of anything that would be better. Even 10.2 is freaking brilliant.
Comment by Scott
Made Monday, 25 of June , 2007 at 5:25 am
Hey, nicely reviewed!
A question: Is flash installed by default? Or do you have to do some software settings in the install? When I did it (10.2) I’m sure flash wasn’t there… Hum.
One thing I think opensuse has fallen behind in is codecs for things like media, and wireless networking. I’ve also found the community to be a bit fragmented - there are so many sites doing opensuse support - maybe it should be centeralized. Anyway, good work, I’m looking forward to 10.3.
Scott
Comment by cb400f
Made Monday, 25 of June , 2007 at 6:43 am
Many good observartions from someone not very involved with openSUSE. Of course openSUSE doesn’t have apt-get - but actually on 10.2 it comes with 2 different CLIs for package management by default - zypper and rug. RealPlayer decision is simply a legal one - getting mp3 support for amarok from 3rd party repos is easy.
Make sure you try out 10.3 final - many great things are coming - some of which are not available in alpha5 yet..
- Much faster package management (binary cache used on demand instead of reading all cache into memory)
- Zenworks stack is dropped (making package management simpler, faster and with less bugs)
- 1 CD install for KDE/GNOME desktop
- Some common YaST-modules are getting a makeover (network, printer, partitioner)
- large boot speed improvements
- KDE4 elements in standard KDE (3.5.x) (so far mostly games)
- KDE4 preview
- Green artwork (SUSE gets it’s true identity back, very important )
.. and various other things.
@ Scott
Flash-player is installed by default when you use the DVD - or use the non-oss add-on CD (”CD6″). CD1-5 are OSS only. If installing from CD1-5 all you need to do is add the non-oss repo and install flash using the package manager - same goes for Java.
Comment by davemc
Made Monday, 25 of June , 2007 at 11:05 am
Three things that destroy openSUSE in the broader distro war –
1. Proprietary graphics card driver preconfiguration/support
2. Proprietary graphics card driver preconfiguration/support
3. Proprietary graphics card driver preconfiguration/support
Although they have done a great job of getting the “nv” driver to do about everything it is capable of doing (which is quite pathetic), they have zero support for getting your graphics card to work properly. Any distro that wont help the user support his/her graphics card (which they bought and paid for) is, and always will be, a loser.
Comment by bjb_nyj101
Made Monday, 25 of June , 2007 at 2:09 pm
Having proprietary software is not what made suse drop. its the microsoft deal. PCLinux has proprietary stuff and its on its way to passing ubuntu on the HPD. Even if the novell-microsoft deal wouldnt have happened, PCLinuxOS would have passed it anyway. As far as hits per day are concerned, when the novell deal happened, suse’s hits took a big leap up on the rankings. i guess it was all the media attention it was getting. Remember: the distro’s dont get their hits from their users, they get it from other people showing interest in the distro.
Comment by openSUSE
Made Monday, 25 of June , 2007 at 8:05 pm
@Aku
“I really don’t know why they ‘default’ to GNOME nowadays..”
It’s not true, there is no “default” DE in openSUSE. Both Gnome and KDE are supported. However I think you are not openSUSE user because you have simply no idea about Gnome in openSUSE. Gnome in openSUSE is outdated, has less Gnome apps than Gnome in, for example, Fedora, and generally is less polished than KDE. Otoh KDE has always up-to-date packages, a lot of apps and is really polished. I wish openSUSE could support Gnome as much as they are supporting KDE!
@Scott
“One thing I think opensuse has fallen behind in is codecs for things like media”
G, some people will never understand that openSUSE will not ship with all this media related stuff. Never. Just like Fedora won’t ship codecs. Never, never, never. Just stop asking about it…
@davemc
“they have zero support for getting your graphics card to work properly”
Are you kidding? SUSE is the only distro that has drivers for NVidia and ATI hosted on…NVidia and ATI servers! And those drivers are in rpm format, just add repo with driver and install it using YaST. And when you go to, let’s say newest drivers site http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_amd64_100.14.11%20.html
what do you see? A link to SUSE how-to! I don’t see there any information about Ubuntu or other popular distro, just SUSE. If this is not support so what is?
Please stop spreading the FUD. I know that Novell-MS pact is evil per se but it doesn’t mean you have to spread FUD about openSUSE which is really outstanding distro.
Comment by Jason
Made Tuesday, 26 of June , 2007 at 4:20 pm
“Please stop spreading the FUD. I know that Novell-MS pact is evil per se but it doesn’t mean you have to spread FUD about openSUSE which is really outstanding distro.”
I second that, with the only difference that I do not see the pact as “evil”. Collaboration of Linux with Windows can bring new users to Linux. Just think about how many people use a PC at home with Windows only because that’s what they use at work (trained in it and all they know). If Linux desktop makes it into work environment, people will be trained to use it. And, naturally, will start using it at home. Expecting a rapid switch from Windows to Linux is just too naive.
Comment by tom t
Made Tuesday, 26 of June , 2007 at 4:38 pm
Those who are concerned about using FUD should consider this… MS is using FUD to coerce Linux distributors to allign themselves with MS. SUSE has cooperated with the principle agent of FUD. SUSE has chosen to put itself in a position to use FUD against competing Linux distros that aren’t aligned with MS.
If you are concerned with those who use FUD… that is, if you can’t support those who use FUD as a marketing tool… should you really be supporting SUSE?
Comment by Jason
Made Tuesday, 26 of June , 2007 at 5:36 pm
Take your FUD elsewhere
You used it 6 times in your short post (if I counted right). So you’re using it too, fuddy-boy
Comment by openSUSE
Made Tuesday, 26 of June , 2007 at 9:15 pm
@Jason
““Please stop spreading the FUD. I know that Novell-MS pact is evil per se but it doesn’t mean you have to spread FUD about openSUSE which is really outstanding distro.”
I second that, with the only difference that I do not see the pact as “evil”. Collaboration of Linux with Windows can bring new users to Linux.”
You are partly right. Collaboration is a good thing but patent deal which is not clear is a bad thing. This is why I called this pact as “evil”. You don’t have to pay for unspecified threats, and you can still protect your customers like Red Hat does
http://news.com.com/Red+Hat+adds+new+Linux+legal+protection/2100-7344_3-6132552.html
http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html
Novell made mistake because Novell (imho) still doesn’t understand a value of community and free software. Microsoft did a lot of bad things to GNU/Linux users, spreading the FUD etc. and Novell should know that such strange deal will turn users against them.
But there is another thing. What Novell did also wrong is a communication with community. Novell should understand that such deal like with Microsoft has to be transparent. Users have to know what, when, why and how. And all those “open” letters did not clarify anything at all. I as a GNU/Linux, openSUSE, Fedora user don’t know what will Microsoft do in the nearest future but I’m sure it won’t be something nice (history shows Microsoft as a predatory company, not cooperative and good neighbour). And Novell did not convince me that it will have enough power to defend GNU/Linux from Microsoft dirty tricks.
Comment by hityou
Made Tuesday, 26 of June , 2007 at 9:19 pm
Go openSUSE! or if you want better supported SUSE try SLED with SP1.. rocks!
Comment by openSUSE
Made Wednesday, 27 of June , 2007 at 3:24 am
@Jason
““Please stop spreading the FUD. I know that Novell-MS pact is evil per se but it doesn’t mean you have to spread FUD about openSUSE which is really outstanding distro.”
I second that, with the only difference that I do not see the pact as “evil”. Collaboration of Linux with Windows can bring new users to Linux.”
You are partly right. Collaboration is a good thing but patent deal which is not clear is a bad thing. This is why I called this pact as “evil”. You don’t have to pay for unspecified threats, and you can still protect your customers like Red Hat does
http://news.com.com/Red+Hat+adds+new+Linux+legal+protection/2100-7344_3-6132552.html
http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html
Novell made mistake because Novell (imho) still doesn’t understand a value of community and free software. Microsoft did a lot of bad things to GNU/Linux users, spreading the FUD etc. and Novell should know that such strange deal will turn users against them.
But there is another thing. What Novell did also wrong is a communication with community. Novell should understand that such deal like with Microsoft has to be transparent. Users have to know what, when, why and how. And all those “open” letters did not clarify anything at all. I as a GNU/Linux, openSUSE, Fedora user don’t know what will Microsoft do in the nearest future but I’m sure it won’t be something nice (history shows Microsoft as a predatory company, not cooperative and good neighbour). And Novell did not convince me that it will have enough power to defend GNU/Linux from Microsoft dirty tricks.
PS. Sorry for sending message so many times but it didn’t show previously.
Comment by Scott
Made Friday, 29 of June , 2007 at 12:23 am
@openSUSE
“G, some people will never understand that openSUSE will not ship with all this media related stuff. Never. Just like Fedora won’t ship codecs. Never, never, never. Just stop asking about it…”
Not to start a flame war… But how does ubuntu have default mp3 support then? I’ve got 7.4 (I think) on a machine out the back, and I could play mp3s by default. No extra package installation. I’d just like to know why openSuSE doesn’t do it… (BTW, I am a openSuSE user, not some ubuntu guy coming to have a go @ openSuSE)
Scott
Pingback by Boycott Novell » Do-No-Evil Saturday: Opensuse Does Well and Novell Goes Deeper into Identity Management
Made Friday, 29 of June , 2007 at 8:21 pm
[…] is another yet good review of Opensuse. Overall, openSUSE 10.2 is great to use and feels as though it runs faster than any other […]
Comment by openSUSE
Made Saturday, 30 of June , 2007 at 1:06 pm
@Scott
Novell/RedHat are in USA, Canonical is not so it doesn’t care about USA law.
Btw. Owner of this blog deleted my previous post. I wonder why he did it. It was response to latest Jason post. I hope it is not because he doesn’t like others point of view…
Comment by Cole
Made Saturday, 30 of June , 2007 at 2:07 pm
I have never deleted any posts to any article I have written. I have enjoyed reading everyones comments and have no intention of censoring anything that has posted (unless of course it is spam).
I am not sure why your post never made it, but feel free to repost!
Comment by openSUSE
Made Saturday, 30 of June , 2007 at 7:23 pm
I didn’t want to offend you, but I’m sure I saw it and now it is not here. It was quite long post where I wrote (in response to Jason post) that Red Hat provides cover for it’s customers and doesn’t have to sign such strange patent deals like Novell. Here is the link if you need more information http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html
Comment by Zaine Ridling
Made Sunday, 8 of July , 2007 at 10:50 am
I tried openSUSE on my (3-year old, but very powerful) machine and even with a new video card and monitor, the graphics were awful between both KDE and GNOME. However, out of curiosity, I downloaded SLED 10-SP1 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) and tried it. That was almost two weeks ago and I’m still impressed.
The start/computer menu and the application menu layout is the best I’ve ever seen, and that includes any flavor of MS Windows or OS X. Hardware support is incredible, recognizing and installing drivers for my new Nvidia card and monitor during installation, and within a couple of downloads, I was watching movies, playing MP3s, and so on. Every part of SLED 10-SP1 is quick and responsive. Best of all, someone tell me why the same fonts on most other distros are so readable and clear on SLED 10-SP1! Only Fedora 7 equals its font clarity, and since I spent more than 90% of my time at the computer reading, that’s essential.
Frankly, I hate the deal Novell made with Microsoft. No, I really hate it. You don’t enable evil on principle. However, I’m beginning to think that Microsoft got suckered out of its millions, since to date it is Novell who has benefitted most, and what did Microsoft get? Nothing they couldn’t already get for free. I also dislike the Novell version of OpenOffice. But for $50 (or the 60-day evaluation), SLED 10-SP1 is very, very nice. If I were trying to hook a Windows user, I’d start here, and then maybe let them use PCLinuxOS or Linux Mint.
Comment by Jen Smith
Made Saturday, 11 of August , 2007 at 11:06 am