openSUSE? Tempting...

[tuxerman]

Well I'm in a dilemma right now. I know Kubuntu is almost the worst (if not THE worst) KDE distro.. so I want to switch to openSUSE. But I simply can't afford to miss two things:
1: The community support ubuntu (and subsequently, Kubuntu and others too) has.. I simply love this place and the people here;
and 2: 'apt'. I've heard good things about the 1-click install and zypper in openSUSE 11, and want to give it a try, but I'd like to hear from someone who has used them. Download speeds here arent very impressive and I'll like to have a fairly good opinion before I go ahead :)

For the record, I'm a KDE user, have tried to be content with ubuntu but find myself going back to KDE. Have even tried doing a KDE-install on top of ubuntu but even that isn't really good, not considering the clutter.

I have used openSUSE when it was in version 10 and found it to be real good except for package management, which has hopefully changed. But again this community has a soft spot in my heart :)

[Vince4Amy]

OpenSUSE Is a brilliant distro. 11.1 is out on the 18th if you want to wait for the latest and greatest. The DVD will contain:

Gnome 2.24
KDE 3.5.10
KDE 4.1

I'm downloading the release candidate right now.

I've been using SuSE since 9.1 and I've always found it to be a nice easy to use stable system. I've never understood why some people don't like YaST I've never had problems with speed (especially in 11 it's really fast). I guess the download speeds you were talking about were simply a poor connection.

RPM Distros are fine as well, I've never had dependency problems not even back on 9.1. OpenSUSE Is also very stable and don't let the Novell haters tell you not to use it.

[tuxerman]

What if I go for the KDE4 live CD version (of the 11.1 release)? I think it's better because I dont need to be downloading 5 gigs-worth of stuff of which only a fraction is needed for my everyday use. (Thats one of the things I just love about *ubuntu - it installs the basics and I can just apt-get anything I need)... so what all packages will the KDE4 live CD (11.1) include? Or what has the older KDE4 one included?
Thanks,

[Vince4Amy]

The Live CD includes everything to have a working base system KDE, Firefox, OpenOffice etc and you'd download extra packages from the repositories, a lot like Kubuntu.

YaST should automatically download packages required when it comes to configuring a printer or similar hardware through it.

[exploder]

tuxerman, there is nothing wrong with being a KDE fan. I have tried OpenSuse quite a few times but have found their repos to be somewhat frustrating when it comes to adding the multimedia packages.

Kubuntu is not perfect by any means but it has much better support from the community. There is the "How To" for getting multimedia working, copy and paste a command and everything works! Also, there are people in the forums that can help you to easily upgrade KDE to newer development versions.

Just one more thought, all of the new releases seem to suffer from the exact same bugs. I think you will find much better support right here. I compare lots of distros and while OpenSuse looks attractive the underlying system is still the same as any other distribution.

Just my two cents.

[binbash]

zypper is also good, not good as apt but it is ok.things i dont like at suse :

It does not have active community like ubuntu.You will miss that
I dont like repos (community repos, everything)
I tried Latest suse, and i think kubuntu is better than opensuse as kde distro.Even fedora 10 is better than suse

[exploder]

To add to what binbash wrote, at least Fedora has community built scripts to get your multimedia working. OpenSuse's repos always seem to have conflicting packages for me and poor support where multimedia is concerned.

[kabloink]

I don't understand why so many people have problems with the multimedia codecs on OpenSUSE. The restricted codecs for multimedia are quickly and easily installed by using the one click installs at the OpenSUSE Community website.

http://opensuse-community.org/

[kabloink]

The restricted formats for multimedia are quickly and easily installed by using the one click installs at the OpenSUSE Community website. So, the multimedia support shouldn't be a problem

http://opensuse-community.org/

The only multimedia conflict that I noticed on OpenSUSE 11 is with the bad codecs for gstreamer. You are given the choice on how to proceed when this happens. It's no different than trying to install debs from another source on Ubuntu and getting an error message about conflicts.

[exploder]

The restricted formats for multimedia are quickly and easily installed by using the one click installs at the OpenSUSE Community website. So, the multimedia support shouldn't be a problem

I tried that in OpenSuse 11 and the system would not boot up right after that. It might have been something I did wrong but after reinstalling the OS twice I had enough.

I will no doubt try OpenSuse 11.1 on my test machine and I am glad you posted the one click multimedia install for anyone wishing to give it a try.

[Vince4Amy]

Yes I have no problems with Multimedia on OpenSUSE. I'm also a KDE user.

[exploder]

I took a look at OpenSuse KDE a few minutes ago from the Live CD. I must admit it looks nice and was very quick and responsive. The applications were very up to date and seemed stable. If multimedia can be set up without problems then this is an excellent choice. OpenSuse developer's did an awesome job on the look and feel of this release. I will have to install this release on my test system and give multimedia a try.

[Vince4Amy]

YaST Is also a very good tool.

[67GTA]

The only conflicts come from the packman vs opensuse repos when installing multimedia. Opensuse's version of amarok and kaffeine are intentionally crippled to meet their open source motto. You have to install packman's version of them both, and remove opensuse's xine-lib(crippled version of libxine). The packman repo is added when using the one click multimedia install, and will pull in everything else you need. Yast will give you options during the process to do this. It will ask something like "Install amarok with vendor change?" It just means you are going to have the packman version instead of the default opensuse version. I have not found any other KDE distro to compare to Opensuse yet. I use their KDE version on all of my machines. I hate their Gnome desktop.

[K.Mandla]

Moved to OpenSuse subforum.

[NightwishFan]

I now use OpenSUSE 11 on any computer I own. Currently using the KDE3 desktop, and I will wait for 11.1 before I switch to KDE4.

As for multimedia, my main gripe is the DVD playback, which many new Linux users may find hard to setup, and would probably give up. Personally I do not mind the extra work.

And of course Yast is amazing.

[brokenreality]

Off-Topic Great Username "NightwishFan"

[NightwishFan]

:/ Thanks, I figured what kind of name describes who I am and bam there we have it.

To avoid being off topic, the installer in OpenSUSE 11 is awesome.

[ibutho]

I now use OpenSUSE 11 on any computer I own. Currently using the KDE3 desktop, and I will wait for 11.1 before I switch to KDE4.

As for multimedia, my main gripe is the DVD playback, which many new Linux users may find hard to setup, and would probably give up. Personally I do not mind the extra work.

And of course Yast is amazing.

Its simple to add dvd and multimedia support. Go to YaST -> Software -> Community Repositories and add the Packman repository to your software sources. After that go to Software -> Software Management and install libdvdcss. If you are using xine based applications, you may also want to install libxine. This will remove the crippled xine-lib package shipped with openSUSE and replace it with a fully functional version of libxine and other multimedia codecs. If you are using gstreamer based applications, install the gstreamer bad and gstreamer ugly plugins.

[NightwishFan]

Its not that simple for some of my less experienced friends and my family that depend on Linux. Normally I have to do it for them. Thats all. I am not saying it is hard, its just someone might say 'well DVDs work in Windows!'

[Vince4Amy]

Its not that simple for some of my less experienced friends and my family that depend on Linux. Normally I have to do it for them. Thats all. I am not saying it is hard, its just someone might say 'well DVDs work in Windows!'

It's a similar process on Windows. To be able to play DVDs on Windows I had to purchase PowerDVD in order to have a codec. It applies to any OS because of the DVD encryption.

When 11.1 is released I will continue using KDE 3.5, I will switch to 4 eventually, probably when 4.2 or 4.3 is released, KDE 3 is good enough for now. I'm still using Kubuntu 8.04 on one of my computers because it has KDE 3.5.10 and once it's all running and configured Kubuntu isn't bad, it just needs more work then some other distros.

[plb]

I've installed the latest 11.1 RC1 to my laptop and it works great. Everything was detected out of the box without issue. The same cannot be said for Ubuntu which has some sort of USB bug that affected my laptop. Much better KDE implementation than Kubuntu imho. And all the restricted stuff e.g. flash, libdvd etc is simple to install.

[Vince4Amy]

Did you try the KDE 4.1 release? If so How was it?

[mhh91]

in opensuse 11.1,what will differ in the final release from the release candidate,can anybody tell me?

[plb]

Did you try the KDE 4.1 release? If so How was it?

It's great =) much better than Kubuntu implementation if you ask me.

[plb]

in opensuse 11.1,what will differ in the final release from the release candidate,can anybody tell me?

Apart from the bug fixes I'm not quite sure. I imagine we'll have to wait till the 18th to see.

[Vince4Amy]

It's great =) much better than Kubuntu implementation if you ask me.

I tried Kubuntu 8.10 it's a really bad implementation. But is it better than Mandriva which offers the best KDE 4.1 so far of any distro IMO, but even that is full of random crashes with plasma.

Does OpenSUSE 11.1 do that?

I may still hold off and use 3.5.10.

[symon1980]

zypper is also good, not good as apt but it is ok.things i dont like at suse :

It does not have active community like ubuntu.You will miss that
I dont like repos (community repos, everything)
I tried Latest suse, and i think kubuntu is better than opensuse as kde distro.Even fedora 10 is better than suse

BAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHA
Excuse me while I laugh my *** OFF!!!!!!!
rooffflllllllll

[symon1980]

If you are talking about KDE distro's... there is No better distro than OpenSuse.. Afterall... Novell have Kde developers working for them to make sure that their kde implementation is spot on.... Opensuse has always had the Best Kde Desktop, Always will....
Although, Mandriva do a good job too. Fedora's isn't bad... Kubuntu's is just plain Horrible. sorry.

[plb]

If you are talking about KDE distro's... there is No better distro than OpenSuse.. Afterall... Novell have Kde developers working for them to make sure that their kde implementation is spot on.... Opensuse has always had the Best Kde Desktop, Always will....
Although, Mandriva do a good job too. Fedora's isn't bad... Kubuntu's is just plain Horrible. sorry.

I agree that openSUSE has the most well done implementation of KDE. The integration is just excellent though I must confess last time I tried Mandriva was probably back in 1999 so I'm not sure how it is these days.

[Half-Left]

I agree that openSUSE has the most well done implementation of KDE. The integration is just excellent though I must confess last time I tried Mandriva was probably back in 1999 so I'm not sure how it is these days.

I personally think Fedora 10 does the better job of KDE4 now, I think opensuse has not done a good job with KDE4. I tried 11.1RC1 dvd and it's not so good, still uses crystal icons in the menu, suse branding all over the place, using Aya theme as default looks ugly, icon layout looks odd on the panel, missing Zoom UI feature and plasma(cashew).

Also their install process is to long winded, Fedora 10 is much nicer and simple, install off the cd and only reboot once.

[symon1980]

Kde 4x on Fedora is quite good... but...
You are comparing Fedora 10 "a Stable Release"
to Opensuse 11.1 "which is an alpha release"

Save your judgement for When Opensuse 11.1 is released ;) :)
Thu, Dec 18: openSUSE 11.1 public release
Although I do applaud Fedora.

[Half-Left]

Kde 4x on Fedora is quite good... but...
You are comparing Fedora 10 "a Stable Release"
to Opensuse 11.1 "which is an alpha release"

Save your judgement for When Opensuse 11.1 is released ;) :)
Thu, Dec 18: openSUSE 11.1 public release
Although I do applaud Fedora.

Opensuse is 11.1 RC1 not alpha, it's out in about 10days.

[symon1980]

thats right.
I meant RC :)

[plb]

Well I do know one change for the final..amarok 1.4.7 will be the default audio player as opposed to the 2 beta currently in the RC. No need to worry though as it will be available regardless.