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Thursday, June 26th, 2008

openSUSE 11, a quick look

A couple of days ago I installed openSUSE 11 [GNOME version] on my casual use laptop. I only installed it out of curiosity as I was interested to see how it compared to my regular Ubuntu set-up. I was not really expecting to be as impressed as I have been, openSUSE is really nice.

The good stuff

Here is a short list of features I like about openSUSE:

The default look and feel is really professional and very slick. I know it is only a cosmetic issue, but first impressions count, or so I have been told.
The single GNOME panel and main Slab menu make for a good combination. I did not think that I would be overly enamoured with it, but I found myself liking its simplicity. It only took a few minutes to make myself familiar with how it operates and when it is used in conjunction with the next impressive feature, it works well.
GNOME Do is installed by default. I have been loving the speed advantage this application has given me, to quote the website, GNOME + Do = Crazy Delicious :)
Both Compiz and PulseAudio are integrated into the desktop environment. I did not have to install any additional packages to make the most of Compiz as CompizConfig Settings Manager was installed by default.

The not so good stuff

Unfortunately, my time spent with openSUSE has not been all good, here is a short list of stuff I noticed which is not so impressive:

During the installation I was unceremoniously dropped to the console and presented with a login prompt. This was slightly disconcerting and I nearly rebooted as I thought the install process had failed; then, just as I was about to restart my system, X popped back to life and the installation continued. I am not sure what that was all about?!
I have experienced numerous application-level crashes. Banshee seems particularly unstable on my system and often disappears from my desktop without so much as a bye-your-leave — most disappointing as I was expecting good things from Banshee :(
openSUSE's package management is fine, but it is not APT. I miss APT.

Conclusion

I have not been using the system long enough to make any solid conclusions; however, from what I have experienced so far, openSUSE 11 is definitely worth a look. If I was not so attached to APT, I would maybe consider keeping it installed. Having said that, it really is not too difficult to set-up Ubuntu to mimic and take advantage of the features I like in openSUSE.

Tagged with: linux, opensuse, ubuntu

13 Responses to “openSUSE 11, a quick look”

pacho wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Then, please, sent some bug reports for installation problem and banshee crashes :-)

Thanks
Philip wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

@pancho: will do :-)
Asmo Koskinen wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

I have used Ubuntu/LTSP for years, but few days ago I did try openSUSE 11/x86_64/KDE4 with KIWI-LTSP. It worked out as fine as Ubuntu Hardy Alternate with LTSP-option.

Here is my posts to the ltsp-discuss -list.

http://marc.info/?l=ltsp-discuss&m=121439984215622&w=2
http://marc.info/?l=ltsp-discuss&m=121441563214251&w=2

Best Regards Asmo Koskinen.
ryanhaigh wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

A while back I gave Suse another look as it was the first distro I tried before moving on to Debian/Ubuntu for all my setups. While the system as a whole did seem a little bloated and slow on my older hardware the look was indeed very professional but the fact that it took a good few minutes to install anything drove me to wipe it within a day and try and give ubuntu that same look. Then the other day this http://dag.wieers.com/blog/using-apt-in-an-rpm-world reminded me that you can in fact use the awesomeness of apt on Suse and other RPM based systems. I have never used it myself but if it does work properly and it is fast then why do these distros not use apt for installing instead of spending so much time developing these sub-par alternatives.
Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

I have been increasingly tempted by Suse too. One thing that is an absolute barrier to entry for me is an analogy of APTs build-dep. Does zypper, or some other tool, give me this functionality?
Azrael Nightwalker wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

You can install apt on Suse (should be available in their repos), but it won't be as powerful as in Debian or Ubuntu.
Vadim P. wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

I've tried suse too. I really didn't like the "Computer" menu - I'm sorry, but when I want to launch a program, I should not have to type into the search field to search for it. If I don't, I have to click yet another button, and then be greeted with a humongous list of apps. I think that "Computer" too closely correlated to "Start" (or the windows logo now) as it's in windows, which, after seeing gnome's menu bar, is pitifully bad design.

So I removed that, added the menu bar, but for some reason everything is split into categories, with the majority of categories only having 1-2 programs. Argh, the extra time wasted is just annoying, never mind searching through the list takes a while (as you wait for the popup submenu).

The installation also had so many technical details too - some that even I didn't get and I skipped them with fingers crossed. It does look pretty though - so I'd say opensuse is great for enterprise use as it's main goal is. But not quite there for a home user to install.
Andrew wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

As a note when the installer configures xorg (and drops to console) - it actually says a message such as "please don't worry - we're configuring xorg" or something similar. I don't think it can be knocked for this :)
Francis wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Out of interest, what features did you miss from APT? Because with the latest versions of Zypper and YaST it's really more featureful than APT, and it has a smarter solver.

openSUSE also switched to LZMA payload for RPMs which means that RPMs are up to 3 times smaller in extreme cases (so faster to download) and faster to decompress (install) too.
Francis wrote, Thursday, June 26th, 2008

@Mikkel — great capability for sure, but Zypper can do this too though:

linux-f6l2:/home/francis # zypper si -h source-install (si) [options] …

Install specified source packages and their build dependencies.

Command options: -d, —build-deps-only Install only build dependencies of specified packages.
Mike Johnston wrote, Thursday, July 17th, 2008

I cant stand 11. I installed it and it wouldn't even pick up my standard broadcom network card in my laptop, something every single other distro i have installed managed to do with no issues.

It's ugly as heck.. And lord how kde4 is bad.
easgs wrote, Friday, September 12th, 2008

I have created a Multimedia Pack portable for Open Suse 11, the included programs and codecs are:
1. kchmviewer
2. mplayer, mplayer plugin
3. audacious
4. k3b, k3b-codecs
5. sox
6. devede
7. audacity
8. avidemux
9. ffmpeg
10. transcode
11. ntfs-config
12. vlc
13. libdvdcss
14. w32codecs
15. xine
16. xmms
17. dvdShrink
18. k9copy
19. Gtkpod
20. Acetoneiso
21. Furiousiso
22. DVD::RIP
23. Amarok
24. Kaffeine
25. kmplayer
26. Kdvdcreator
27. K3guitune
28. Kdvdauth
29. DVDAuthorWizard
30. Kguitar
31. Mjpegtools
32. Soundconverter
33. Gdvdcreator
34. Asunder
35. Brasero
36. Smplayer
37. LMMS
38. winff
39. KmediaFactory
40. DVD2Xvid
you can install any of the above without internet, they include all the dependencies, just unzip the both files into a folder named MMP2008 and create a repository from that folder as a simple rpm folder in yast, then make a search in the yast installer with the name of the program and check it to install it, this is very important if you don't have internet at home, and besides, by default Open Suse doesn't include several codecs due to license matters.

I created a blog about the MMP 2008 where you can download the pack:

http://easgs.wordpress.com/category/multimedia-pack-2008-for-open-suse-11/
Philip wrote, Saturday, September 13th, 2008

@easgs: Thank you for leaving your comment, your project looks interesting and really quite helpful. I will give a try the next time I install openSUSE. Thanks again :)

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