openSUSE 12.1 is out today!

[wolfen69]

I'm using 12.1 right now as I type (I decided on a proper install to an extra HD I had laying around), and have to say I'm disappointed once again. There are no additional repos available at the moment, such as nvidia, vlc, etc.... I need those 2 things for what I do on my computer. (I'm not into compiling any more) Pretty sad they couldn't get the repos ready before release time.

Had to activate my wireless card in yast. (Really?) Every other distro auto-detects it. <scratches head>

And I guess gnome-shell is not possible without the nvidia drivers. I'm stuck using gnome-fallback with the nouveau drivers.

The boot up screens are glitchy with artifacts, and sometimes you see only text scrolling. Not a deal breaker, but in this day and age there should be a static screen with a progress bar until you login.

It's little things like this that keep me on ubuntu. I'm sure it's OK for some people, but not for me.

Goodbye opensuse, I'll try again next release. Now it's time to try out Fedora 16.

[jjex22]

+1 here - now it's on a real machine I also get an odd boot sequence - bits of loading text appear on and off down the left hand side THROUGH the splash? weird. My hardware was fully supported inc. Wireless, but that's usual for this pc. KDE 64 - using ~560MB after loading and opening Firefox (to come here) only annoyance for me at the moment is when I lock the screen and log back in the wireless is disabled - change setting... lock screen, sign in and it's reset, bit annoying!

I'll keep this up and running to see what fixes come through over the next week, but I think I'm also going to give Kubuntu a go - not tried it upon reflection since 10.04, but if 11.10 is running even 20% heavier than this set up, I may be interested. Right so that's Kubuntu and Lubuntu to give a proper work out this week - talk about opposite approaches!

Edit: changed my wireless driver and odd issue's gone - to be honest I'm impressed for my need I'm still only having the splash screen issue which can be display driver related, but as I'm not having any other display issue and I've now tested nearly all the heavy graphics things I do - media playback etc, and I rarely actually shut off my main comp - naughty I know - I'm okay to put up with this - for a new release, this is nothing to some of the nonsense I've put up with (remember when you DL'd an update that broke my unity 3d, ubuntu? ... )

[boydrice]

openSuse is a good distro, but have always just felt more at home on Ubuntu or Debian.

I think the one thing holding me back is there is a currently maintained Xfce version (last one was 11.3). I could build one with the SUSE Studio, but I am just to lazy for that lol.

There are no official Xfce or LXDE live media but either can be selected during the DVD or netinstall.

[Brushstroke]

Any ATI users out there? I tried OpenSUSE 11.4's implementation of Gnome 3 but I didn't install it because it kept defaulting to fallback mode in the live environment. I guess it didn't have the drivers for my card. Have any ATI users had bad experiences with the live version of Gnome 3 in this new SUSE release?

If I hear good reports, I might consider giving their version with Gnome 3 a go.

[wolfen69]

Any ATI users out there? I tried OpenSUSE 11.4's implementation of Gnome 3 but I didn't install it because it kept defaulting to fallback mode in the live environment. I guess it didn't have the drivers for my card. Have any ATI users had bad experiences with the live version of Gnome 3 in this new SUSE release?

If I hear good reports, I might consider giving their version with Gnome 3 a go.

I guess right now the ati and nvidia repos (among others) aren't available yet. It makes no sense for a major distro to release without these things. Do they really expect people to build from source and blacklist entries? Not that I can't do it, but I'd rather not.

[BigSilly]

I guess right now the ati and nvidia repos (among others) aren't available yet. It makes no sense for a major distro to release without these things. Do they really expect people to build from source and blacklist entries? Not that I can't do it, but I'd rather not.

I agree. That is pretty disappointing for a modern Linux release. Like you I could do the whole thing manually, but I'd rather it came ready to go with the software and drivers I like to use in the package manager.

I'm sure they'll get it going soon enough, and I'll install it then. But I take your point that this type of thing is what makes Ubuntu so good.

[coffeecat]

Any ATI users out there? I tried OpenSUSE 11.4's implementation of Gnome 3 but I didn't install it because it kept defaulting to fallback mode in the live environment. I guess it didn't have the drivers for my card. Have any ATI users had bad experiences with the live version of Gnome 3 in this new SUSE release?

To your first question: yes. With my HD5450 card the live Opensuse 12.1 CD booted to the gnome shell desktop without difficulty. Indeed, I was pleasantly surprised how quickly it booted. If yours defaulted back to the fallback session then I guess you have a very old ATI card or very new card. The open source ATI driver - which will be the default with Opensuse - is quite capable of running Gnome Shell (and Unity for that matter) with most ATI cards. Which card do you have?

EDIT: oops, sorry, just noticed you were referring to 11.4. Have a go with 12.1 and tell us how you get on with your card.

[sffvba[e0rt]

My burn of 12.1 was a dud (which in hind sight may be a blessing in disguise as it prevented me from hopping again )


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[wolfen69]

My burn of 12.1 was a dud (which in hind sight may be a blessing in disguise as it prevented me from hopping again )


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You might not be missing much. Over on their forums it seems to be getting less than stellar reviews, and there's not much excitement over it.

[BigSilly]

You might not be missing much. Over on their forums it seems to be getting less than stellar reviews, and there's not much excitement over it.

Yes, some very mixed opinions. Overall it seems people feel there are a lot of rough edges and a general impression that it wasn't really ready for release. I think I'll stay with Ubuntu 11.10, which thankfully has been running brilliantly.

RE: My earlier post - I do think it's a simple matter of Compiz on Ubuntu that just uses more memory than Gnome 3/Shell. I don't have a problem with that really, since it's working very well indeed, and still uses much less resources than my W7 with Aero on the same PC.