i took opensuse 11 (gnome) for a spin yesterday

[wolfen69]

i just tried 11.1 (gnome) and have to say i can live without it. the package manager was quirky, the slab menu is too much information at once, and getting my tv tuner card configured was an excersise in futility.

i'm sure open suse is wonderful for some people, but even if it did run perfect for me, it wouldn't offer me anything that debian doesn't. to me, nothing beats debian/ubuntu on most computers. but, to each their own.

[shuttleworthwannabe]

I have tried many distro's, incl fedora 10 and Mandriva 2009.1 (Gnome) and now OpenSuse 11.1; I keep coming back to Ubuntu. I am sure if I stayed long enough with them, I would begin to figure out how the system could be made to work on my hardware. But time is of the essence. The deal breaker is the package management application: can anything get better than apt-get/synaptic? and all the PPA channels that are so easy to load; also not forgetting the community...by favorite. It's all happening here...under one roof.

I agree, each to his own. However, where credit is due to OpenSuse, this should be in the looks department--they seem to understand what it means to make an interface look vibrant!

[Antman]

i'm sure open suse is wonderful for some people, but even if it did run perfect for me, it wouldn't offer me anything that debian doesn't. to me, nothing beats debian/ubuntu on most computers. but, to each their own.

Substitute debian/ubuntu for Slackware, and these are my thoughts too.

[jacobw.uk]

openSUSE does have its problems though, I think it is basically because they keep the distro and popular ISV products separate and don't put the emphasis of user friendliness and task orientation that Ubuntu does.

The package management system although it is much better is still way too complicated to match APT/Synaptic in terms of use. The Ubuntu community is more proactive that openSUSE community in my opinion and thats makes a massive difference (also in my opinion )

[exploder]

I tried out OpenSuse 11.1 Gnome version a couple of days ago. The appearance of the system is very polished and attractive in every detail. There are still bugs that are unresolved. It is impossible to use a DVD-RW in OpenSuse 11.1 and the one click codecs install is convenient, not all multimedia playback works the way you would expect. Playback using Flash 10 has very low volume.

I did like the appearance and would even say it is the most attractive Linux distribution out there. The usplash, icons, theme, background looks great. The selection of applications is very good and they really did think of everything you might want.

There is a bug in the Live CD install that locks two desktop icons because the profile for "Linux" does not get completely removed. I was surprised that this bug was not noticed because if you do the install it immediately draws your attention with the lock symbols.

If someone were to write up a "How To" for fixing the few bugs that are present and speeding up the system it would be an excellent choice to run.

[wolfen69]

can anything get better than apt-get/synaptic?

in my opinion, no. mandriva's was very good though.

in opensuse, i downloaded the ivtv drivers for my tv tuner and was told that 160mb of dependencies would also have to be downloaded! WTF! some of the "dependencies" for my tv tuner card included open office updates, some weird codecs, and other things that had nothing to do with my hauppauge card. that's ridiculous. long live apt-get.

[jeffreyldavidson]

I took an excursion to Arch and Suse 11.1 the past couple of days but am back now to Ubuntu.

Arch: I love the aspect of setting up and tinkering with your own system. But even more the idea of a rolling release, never having to upgrade. I did get everything up and running with Gnome and seemed to work OK. I was not though any faster for me and I was never able to get the wireless on my laptop to work - the deal breaker. So after all the work I just dumped it and decided to give Suse a go, although I may come back and try Arch again one day.

Suse: very pleasant to look at, did not care for the menu setup over Ubuntu. Its software repositories seemed confusing and very slow compared to Ubuntu. Additionally, it did not auto mount my CD/DVD drive. It is nice but just didn't feel right.

So after being away I have returned to still the best system out there...Ubuntu. I still may dive into Arch again one day but I am glad to be back home with the U. It just feels right.

[NoSmokingBandit]

I recently tried opensuse as well and i was incredibly impressed. Its the only distro i tired that didnt hate my crappy Trident video card. It was very easy to set up and use and, to be honest, it made ubuntu look very unprofessional imo.

[RedDwarf]

The deal breaker is the package management application: can anything get better than apt-get/synaptic?

Well, we have the APT based package management applications that are unable to do his work in 0,61% of the cases (not meaning that it does the work *correctly* in all the other cases) and then we have the OPIUM/ZYpp (openSUSE) based applications that maths show us do their work perfectly in 100% of cases (http://pho.ucsd.edu/rjhala/papers/opium.pdf).
And isn't just the dependency resolution algorithm... are APT based apps able to automatically install a driver for your newly added hardware? (I'm not really sure, but I don't think so)
The nvidia problem from stinger30au was really easy to avoid. You just needed to run "zypper inr" and zypper will know which package is needed by your graphic card... you don't need to know if it's a NVIDIA FX5200, a NVIDIA 7600GT or an ATI. Since openSUSE 11.1 you don't even need to do anything, the update applet will automatically inform you that you need to install a new driver/package when you insert a new hardware.

and all the PPA channels that are so easy to load

Because the openSUSE Build Service can't offer anything of what the PPAs offer... oh, wait!! And with 1-Click they aren't exactly difficult to load...

also not forgetting the community...by favorite. It's all happening here...under one roof.

There are distros that are good because even if they fail the community will explain you how to fix your problems... and then there are these other distros for which the community isn't so important since they just work.



Package management from openSUSE is second to none.

[Antman]

in my opinion, no. mandriva's was very good though.

in opensuse, i downloaded the ivtv drivers for my tv tuner and was told that 160mb of dependencies would also have to be downloaded! WTF! some of the "dependencies" for my tv tuner card included open office updates, some weird codecs, and other things that had nothing to do with my hauppauge card. that's ridiculous. long live apt-get.

This also happened to me in the openSUSE11.1 KDE4 version. I was trying to install vlc on my test box and Yast gui wanted to install OpenOffice dependencies, Bluetooth doogle drivers, and other non-sense. I canceled the install and tried zypper via konsole; which worked a lot better.
I'm not sure why the gui is so screwy.