Comments on: openSUSE 11.2 – A Linux System Perfect For New Users and Pros Alike

By: zaine_ridling

zaine_ridling — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:10:20 +0000

Great review, Susan. Virtually all those rough edges you experienced are cured with a KDE update 4.3.4 from the stable KDE repository. One thing I really like is the new Droid font family. But with a clean install, openSUSE 11.2 is better than any Windows machine — even Win7 — that I ever worked on.

@jaf – 11.2 does download first before installing. That was one of the first things I noticed.

By: Stephen Shaw

Stephen Shaw — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:39:18 +0000

I completely agree with you on the update process. Luckily they finally added that feature in 11.2. Its just not enabled by default. There are actually a few new cool settings for zypper in the /etc/zypp/zypp.conf on line 219
commit.downloadMode = DownloadInAdvance

By: SneWs

SneWs — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:08:01 +0000

Follow this link http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_Formats/11.2 (openSUSE community website) and you will be up and running MP3′s in no time!

By: Jaf

Jaf — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:17:37 +0000

I don’t agree that OpenSuse 10 was successful. I’ll pass on every single version of the 10 series. 11 series is a vast improvement.

It’s a good KDE 4 implementation. Not the best, but good. Opensuse is also a slugger – it’s on the heavy side. Trying to be jack of all trades comes with a pricetag attached to it I’ll guess.

Opensuse is not the only distro being a tad sluggish – Ubuntu and Mandriva are sinners too.

Yast has improved but obscures a notch or two beyond my liking.

Installation has been the focus of “all” mainstream distros thanks to Ubuntu’s poularisation (not their invention) of fast installs.

OpenSuse does a quite good job wrt installation process, but they still get updates wrong. I clearly prefer Ubuntu’s approach – download everything – then install.

It deserves it’s top 5 place on Distrowatch, but it’s not the topdog.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:15:47 +0000

I do like OpenSUSE and I am a user of OpenSUSE. However, I have found that a few features don’t work in OpenSUSE that I can use just fine in other Linux distro such as wireless and mp3. I have been using OpenSUSE since version 10.0 and would love for it to be most used OS. However, there are better OSes out there mainly Ubuntu it just works and if you find a bugs you can just report a problem and it is fixed in a few days at most. I have found nowhere to report bugs in OpenSUSE and have found several bugs so far. I love Linux and opensource software OpenSUSE used to be my favourite OS and will continue to keep it up to date on my computer. I just wish it would give Ubuntu a better challange. I also wish OpenSUSE would come preinstalled on HP notebooks instead of Windows 7 for less money since it’s free. Go OpenSUSE, a great OS one of the Linux greats.

By: Susan Linton

Susan Linton — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 23:10:03 +0000

I don’t know man. That’s a third-party contribution of an older project without good (or easy to find) documentation for recent openSUSE usage. I really don’t like the sound of it. If you don’t mind risking and perhaps having to reinstall Windows, then go for it. But otherwise, I’d put more thought into the USB stick solution. On USB it’d run as fast as on hard drive, you could save files, and wouldn’t have to worry about hacking or replacing your Windows bootloader. …if your computer can be set to boot off USB or other devices first (and most from the last 3 to 5 years can).

By: Rami

Rami — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:12:45 +0000

Thanks Susan, what about instlux? would it install OpenSuse on windows? Would I need to create another partition or remove windows to install OpenSuse?
Thanks in advance.

By: Susan Linton

Susan Linton — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:26:16 +0000

Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, I was thinking of trying Living on the Edge.

By: Susan Linton

Susan Linton — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:23:44 +0000

Well, there’s isn’t a “Wubi” for openSUSE (that I know of), but you could install using virtualbox, wmware, or the like – but you’d need a hefty machine. You could just run it from the live CD, but you need to remember to save anything you don’t want to lose at reboot to permanent media. My favorite method would be run it from USB stick – it’s an option in the installer now.

By: bico

bico — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:43:57 +0000

I have upgraded to 11.2 because of the the performance improvement. It boots faster and it’s more responsive.

The rough edges and crashes of the desktop made me install KDE3 from the community repo. Now it boots even faster and uses half the amount of RAM (60 MB). I think this setup could also be a good alternative for a low spec machine.