OpenSUSE 10.3 beta 2 has been released. “The openSUSE Team is proud to announce the release of openSUSE 10.3 Beta 2. Though this release should not be used on any production machines, everyone can help shape this release by testing out installations and much more. For more information on the release schedule, take a look at the Roadmap.”
I know it’s a beta, but Beta 1 was more alpha quality for me, absolutely everything crashed in a matter of seconds and my intel wireless card didn’t work after install, didn’t even bother to see if it could be fixed. Got wiped from my HD the same day. All in all i’m getting tired of distro hopping so I won’t try this or anything else but I wish them luck, Suse are the only ones with a half decent looking KDE implementation.
Here it was actually quite stable for a beta 1, except that I couldn’t configure pppoe because of a missing package in the 1 CD KDE installer.
Now I am downloading the DVD and if I manage to configure the network I’ll keep upgrading it till the final.
Typically SUSE has bugs till the release candidates, but no significant ones in the goldmaster (the only exception was 10.1).
“Suse are the only ones with a half decent looking KDE implementation.”
When I used to use OpenSuse as my desktop I found their KDE was the best implemented.It was very smooth, beautiful to look at and had a very consistent feel.
In terms of GUI, I always thought Suse did the best with KDE over any other distro I personally tried, or had seen screenshots of. Ironically over time I have become much more comfortable using Gnome, while at the same time I have become less and less enthralled with the new “Start Menu” clone that really is crap.
Anyone know of any reviews for the latest beta that has some screenshots? I am curious to see what if any changes they have made to the colors, themes, etc..
This is a review of Alpha 7, but not much has changed in terms of look and feel, I actually quite like it:
http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/18763
“less and less enthralled with the new “Start Menu” clone that really is crap.”
Amen brother. That horrible abomination they came up with is my biggest issue with OpenSUSE. That, and that it didnt work with my ralink-based wireless but that seems to be broken in the most of the latest kernels so that’s not really SUSE’s fault.
“That horrible abomination they came up with is my biggest issue with OpenSUSE.”
OK, but that can be changed in less than 5 seconds
amen? It’s a few clicks away and you have the old setup back again.
I seriusly am wondering how much time y’all have spemt with openSUSE. You *can* switch off the stuff you don’t like; there *are* several options available to manage the packages. You don’t *need* to use YaST; you even can switch off parts of it,, if you really are so disgusted.
I don’t get it. People get HP-UX, bitch about the way it’s administered. You give sam, all is a bit better for them. Next, people write a ‘supertool’ and now, all help is not needed…. sigh.
There may be areas where it’s still rough, can be changed but none of them can’t be overcome.
I in fact see more problems with the ideas behind other
sets based on ideals that is OK to have but shouldn’t be forced upon people who want to *use* a system.
Again, you can tune most of the complaints away, easily.
‘It’s a few clicks away and you have the old setup back again.’
To be honest, I really didn’t care all that much since my wireless didnt work (this was before I found out it didnt work in Fedora or Ubuntu either) and I never investigated if the menu could be changed back. My bad.
fair enough.
What I generally do is shell out a few bucks (euro’s in my case) to get something that works, like a new pcmcia card. Or better — get supported hardware but I also realise that this not always is a possibility.
I for instance have a sd card reader that is defunct under linux in my laptop — I got a multicard reader (approx $7) and all is fine… 😉
Actually, that’s exactly what I did. It’s a Surecom ep-9001-g, purchased because Ralink is open with their API docs and drivers. Works perfectly in BSD, never worked well in Linux.
It’s worth noting though that it *does* work with the kernel that comes on the Fedora 7 Live CD (2.6.21-1.3194.fc7) but it stops working as soon as you upgrade Fedora (Yes, i have reported it).
while at the same time I have become less and less enthralled with the new “Start Menu” clone that really is crap.
Yer, and they came up with that ‘SLAB’ menu, supposedly, after extensive user testing!
Initially I didn’t care for the slab menu, now for some reason I like using it.
As for a “Start Menu Clone” a friend of mine who has XP on his laptop was watching me work and was surprised when he saw the slab menu. He mumbled, “all I have is a regular start menu.
To each his own. Not saying you all should like it too, just sayin’ some of us do.
Don’t believe anything, especially coming from those who were from Ximian (now employed by Novell) – there are alot of fanboys who seem to be hyped up on too much caffeine. ‘Extensive user testing’ is code for ‘we threw the idea around the office, people were ooo’ing and aaah’ing, so we merged it!’.
That is probably the one thing I can’t stand – the excessive hype – nothing wrong with promoting and getting excited about an idea, but one has to be grounded in reality and realise when idea that seemed to be cool at the time is useless in every day use.
Your post wouldn’t sound so trollish if sites like betterdesktop.org weren’t available to disprove your point…
And they have a better standing – why? volunteerings throwing their 5 cents worth into the discussion elevates their opinions no higher than mine. Stop trying to elevate people to god like status because they happen to have the prefix ‘expert’.
Its a pain because to access the most basic of applications you need to go through so many clicks its totally inefficient. People may have trashed it, but look at what SGI provided 15 years ago in terms of their Indigo desktop – designed from the ground up for non-technical people, and worked as intended. So far all I’ve seen are desktops with alot of bling strapped onto a very complex operating system with very little effort to integrate the two.
For the record, Microsoft and Apple are guilty of that too. What you end up with is a terribly inconsistant operating system that is difficult to use, especially when the excriment hits the fan.
The thing betterdesktop.org proves the most, are the effect of the big NIH problem some have. Again rather than working with the comunity and joining ongoing and thriving efforts like Open Usability, they start their own. And I find it telling that the last post on that site was over 9 months ago.
Choosing a Linux distribution has always been troublesome for me. I want a sexy looking desktop AND the best package manager out there. Unfortunately, SUSE had the best looking desktop but Debian/Ubuntu had the best package manager.
However, things changed with Linux Mint. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu and shares the same repos. However, it doesn’t “look” like Ubuntu: it looks as sexy as SUSE! And as a bonus: it comes with non-opensource software preinstalled (ex: Flash). Linux Mint won me.
I have written a very easy tutorial, how to install smart on openSUSE 10.2.
While I agree that smart-gui isn’t quite as good as synaptic, it is very near.
debian does not have the best package manager at all. it sometimes sucks very bad and doesn’t always do what you want. It doesn’t find packages, sometimes doesn’t even install the most basic things.
Still, if the package manager is great for you, you can install apt and friends on RPM based sets as well.
As for your bonus: that exactly is one of the reasons people should think about the reason why a debian based setup is great or not. If you like that ideals, go for it. If you don’t, you could go for other alternatives. like yourmint (that I don’t know as of now yet but debian based is not what I can use here anyways; oracle support/certification; that’s what my boss wants)
These betas are incredibly stable. I am now running both 10.2 and 10.3 beta2.
IMO, 10.3 is going to kick a$$. A distribution comparable to the great 9.0.
Anyone been using this? I am really thinking of setting up a server for this and haven’t seen anything recent on iFolder