Submitted by The last time OpenSUSE users enjoyed a stable release was in November 2009 making today’s release of OpenSUSE 11.3 a pretty big deal. This is the first release in the new eight month release schedule for OpenSUSE. Here are some screenshots of the OpenSUSE 11.3 install, KDE and GNOME desktops, and details about some of the popular new features in this release.
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Having been using it since first betas. Very nice system. The installer is really simple and do not get on your way if you want to customize your system.
The system is fast on my machine (using kde), what is always welcome. I am going to deploy it on an old system just to see how it behaves on that.
Also, if you use non-free formats (like mp3, etc) it is really easy to add pacman repository and get all setup with few clicks.
Most of the packages I wanted that were not inside the official repository could be found or on pacman or on opensuse build services, even if sometimes in src.rpm.
yast2-gui is also very friendly and handy to help adjust the system.
My only complain so far is that I had to download the k3b source rpm and compile it to get the mp3 plugin working.
Anyway, very satisfied with it.
Rule #1: remember to proofread before post.
This package is available at packman also. It’s called k3b-codecs. If it doesn’t show up in the mirror you’re using, you can get it directly from the packman website.
Edited 2010-07-16 13:45 UTC
I’m downloading this now. I will probably set this up on my hobby PC – mostly to get some more KDE exposure, and learn about rpm and obs (both necessary skills for MeeGo participation).
What’s more, the MeeGo sources are being imported into the OBS so you can build them for openSUSE or against MeeGo itself, further reducing the barrier to entry and making it easier to port ‘desktop’ software to smaller form factors. There should be a MeeGo/openSUSE image available next week.
http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:11.3/Features
https://build.opensuse.org/project/show?project=Meego:Netbook
Looking forward to install that as well – I have a 22″ monitor but what the heck ;-).
Hopefully packages from the handset UX will also be there, so I can basically do some development work directly on the desktop, instead of having to use a chroot for everything…
Does anyone that has it installed know if iFolder Server is included in the repositories now? It’s a really cool setup, kinda like your own personal Dropbox server, with Mac, Linux, and Windows clients available. http://www.ifolder.com.
It was previously a Novell project that spun off.
Deleted by me.
Edited 2010-07-16 13:55 UTC
Completely forgot about iFolder. Last time I ever looked at that was a long time ago, and I can’t seem to remember the issue of what stopped me from looking further or using it. Thanks for mentioning this. I was going to test out 11.3 anyways as I see that have Btrfs now included, which I needed to look at anyways. Hitting two birds with one stone is always nice, as it allows for more nap time.
I have 11.2 and 11.3 installed side by side on my atom-based NetTop, just for comparisons. The results:
Installed last night, Netbook desktop booted up on my atom based netTop 11 seconds faster than my atom-based win7 netbook! Not alot but it just FELT faster. Nice!
Repositories were quicker (finally) to setup and use, making all my codecs a breeze to pick up and install. No time comparison here, but it was easier than I remember for 11.2. (Non sequitir: On my wireless setup with NDISWrapper on my old klodger HP laptop with wireless Broadcom was great. They wrote a nice command line tool that makes that a breeze now!)
It was nice to have KDevelop4 right there rather than 3.5, and the newer version was still a heck of a lot quicker to load than Aptana RadRails; It also loaded 2-4 seconds faster than 3.5 on 11.2. The integration with KDE4 felt great as well rather than the disjointed KDevelop 3.5 felt on 11.2. Will do some coding tonight to test it a bit more along with Kexi for viewing my Rails databases.
Nice instant recognition of all my hot plugged USB devices, a bit more fluid than 11.2 from the desktop.
I will be loading my .WAVs and converting them to MP3s tonight just to test Amarok. Dolphin is quick and the file previews are actually a bit snappier than in my 11.2 on the same hardware…give a report here if anyone is interested…
Still learning to get comfy with the Netbook mode, but it is FUN! As for plasma, installed my standard plasmoids with NO segfaults. Ditto with downloading themes and wallpapers.
Looking forward to testing LXDE and comparing boot times to the Netbook mode, as well as KMail and Konqueror to see how Akonadi is coming along. Firefox was a bit quicker (subjectively) than on my 11.2 install.
Overall, definitely probably the second best incremental upgrade I have seen (8.2 to 8.3 was my favorite!)
For those who were as frustrated with the KDE4 changeover as I was initally, I believe now is the time to try KDE again; the feature parity is pretty close from a hack/hobbyist developer standpoint.
Yep, the Plasma desktop and most apps are pretty much there in 4.4 – and 4.5 is coming. Unfotunately Suse won’t ship that anytime soon, I hope the next release will do better in that regard. Then again, at least this is rather stable…
Just installed it, some first thoughts:
– Installation routine was nice (I am slightly drunk, yet I was able to do it without torching my valuable partitions)
– Big objection to the “slideshow” during installation. It mentioned iPod trademark explicitly, but referred to msoffice as “popular non-linux productivity software”. Screw these double standards.
– Huge plus for asking to send my hardware profile for some kind of popularity contest. Ubuntu needs to start doing this too.
– Dolphin was unable to mount my windows partitions out of the box, I get Hal.Device.PermissionDeniedByPolicy error, the same I got with Debian. This works directly with Ubuntu. I guess I have to create that policy config file that I did with Debian… but screw that, this is one of the proof points I’ve used before to flag debian as inferior to ubuntu.
– Fonts are bad. Might be because my /home partition is the same I was using with Ubuntu. I’ll try to setup an empty user account.
– No chrome/chromium out of the box. Well, neither has Ubuntu, but they have to start doing this asap like MeeGo ;-).
OpenSUSE doesn’t use the possibly patented freetype subpixel hinting by default, though their are repos for that.
Chromium is on the build service like a lot of new software. http://software.opensuse.org/search .Just click “1-click install”
I’ve just learned from a comment on this weeks Distrowatch that apparently there’s a package pullin-msttf-fonts-11.3-1.2.noarch.rpm to get those.