openSUSE 10.2 - its FANTASTIC! A small review from me...

[elijahclarity]

Hi all
Just wanted to tell ya that I've been running openSUSE 10.2
for a week now and I must say that its quite fantastic!

Novell's OpenOffice is so much better than original
OpenOffice....it handles .doc files better than any other
non-MS office suite that I've seen....you'll almost feel you
are using MS Word to view .doc files! Its DigiKam autodetects
my digital camera and easily imports images
from the camera. Flash, Java, Adobe reader, unRAR,
Opera etc. - all preinstalled and workin out-of-the-box.

And did u see the new redesigned KDE menu in openSUSE 10.2?
Its pretty cool and awesome. The system is pretty snappy, even with
Beagle runnin all the time in the background, although I've just 256 MB RAM
and an Intel Celeron CPU. I've found Beagle so very
useful - its like Google Desktop Search in Windows. I'm playin
Quake2 and Unreal Tournament fullscreen nicely under Wine.
Almost all the packages I need are on the DVD, which is such a boon
given the slow internet connection we have.

NONE of ANY of this was possible in Kubuntu. openSUSE is
truly a complete OS. Kubuntu disappoints, openSUSE is the
BEST OS:) ALL other distros I feel fall short of openSUSE 10.2.
Kubuntu & Ubuntu are single CDs and they don't have
additional CDs for download, which may be difficult
for people with slow internet. And Ubuntu Edgy never worked
fine for me...I'd just see a blinking cursor on bootup and VERRRY
SLOW booting. I've never been successful in installing Dapper or Edgy
using the live CD (although Kubuntu & Xubuntu got installed!!).
And I also feel that Ubuntu guys have been" gnom-ifying"
Kubuntu....removin the splashes and making Konqueror look
like Nautilus.......pahleeeeeeeeez!
But Ubuntu is a great desktop distro and a nice OS I feel, but it
really doesn't like my hardware (monitor) that much and openSUSE
suits me better with its beautiful KDE. They haven't "gnom-ified"
its KDE! The one thing I miss is the elegant apt-get and its speed,
but that has not been much of a problem as openSUSE comes with
most of the packages that I need on the DVD itself. Java, Flash,
RealPlayer, unrar, Adobe Reader what not!

Aahhh..now my days of distro-hopping are over. openSUSE 10.2 is
gonna stay on my PC for many months and will be replaced only
by the next version of openSUSE:) Now its just openSUSE for me!

Take care

[_simon_]

I've only been running it 3 days and hadn't tried OpenOffice yet but just opened writer and frankly I'm amazed as to how fast it opened. I didn't even get a splash screen, it just popped up in 2 seconds!

I do agree with you, SUSE pulls off KDE so much better than Kubuntu does.

SUSE looks very professional even from the boot loader and yes, loving the SUSE menu :)

Saying all that, I am still impressed with Ubuntu, handling sources and packages are easier in Ubuntu. I am not very keen on YAST software manager, I see people recommending SMART but I haven't looked into this yet.

[theslut]

glad you are happy. Can't stand KDE myself, looks more like Windows 3.1 than anything else. It's bulky and unprofessional looking. It has some good things but I don't like it much.

[_simon_]

glad you are happy. Can't stand KDE myself, looks more like Windows 3.1 than anything else. It's bulky and unprofessional looking. It has some good things but I don't like it much.

It grows on you the more you play with it and customise it. KDE feels more professional under SUSE than it does Kubuntu, not sure which distro you tried it under...

[Adamant1988]

It grows on you the more you play with it and customise it. KDE feels more professional under SUSE than it does Kubuntu, not sure which distro you tried it under...

My experience with KDE is from

Mepis
Kubuntu
and
PCLinuxOS.

But, Novell has a penchant for turning otherwise playskool looking interfaces into something professional and user friendly. I trust they did the same with KDE.

[_simon_]

My experience with KDE is from

Mepis
Kubuntu
and
PCLinuxOS.

But, Novell has a penchant for turning otherwise playskool looking interfaces into something professional and user friendly. I trust they did the same with KDE.

This is STANDARD SUSE KDE (running from Live DVD)

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c358/Beowulf1976/SIMON/Screenshots/th_SUSE11.jpg (http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c358/Beowulf1976/SIMON/Screenshots/SUSE11.jpg) http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c358/Beowulf1976/SIMON/Screenshots/th_SUSE12.jpg (http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c358/Beowulf1976/SIMON/Screenshots/SUSE12.jpg) http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c358/Beowulf1976/SIMON/Screenshots/th_SUSE10.jpg (http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c358/Beowulf1976/SIMON/Screenshots/SUSE10.jpg)

Think you'll agree that they managed that with KDE.

[Adamant1988]

It goes look a great deal better than other distros make it look. I'm kind of sad to see they still went with the "Double thick bar" look. But that's a minor gripe.

[_simon_]

The panel is 40px which is slightly smaller than the "normal" setting.

Unfortunately if you reduce the size, the suse menu button does not resize itself so gets cut off and looks plain stupid.

[theslut]

It grows on you the more you play with it and customise it. KDE feels more professional under SUSE than it does Kubuntu, not sure which distro you tried it under...

Suse and PCLinuxOS.

It's not totally terrible, but even running things like Amarok in gnome has this unsatisfactory klunkyness about it. I just don't like it.

[Adamant1988]

The panel is 40px which is slightly smaller than the "normal" setting.

Unfortunately if you reduce the size, the suse menu button does not resize itself so gets cut off and looks plain stupid.

Go figure lol. Oh well, like I said, minor gripe. How's the package management ?

[elijahclarity]

The panel is 40px which is slightly smaller than the "normal" setting.

Unfortunately if you reduce the size, the suse menu button does not resize itself so gets cut off and looks plain stupid.

Hey but it nicely fits itself if u just click on it. It DOES resize itself automatically. I've never had this problem. Just CLICK on it and it will resize itself. Hope this works for u.

And yes using Smart is ALMOST like using apy-get/Synaptic in openSUSE 10.2.

OpenOffice opens quickly coz of the OpenOffice quickstarter I think...

Cheers!

[Adamant1988]

Hey but it nicely fits itself if u just click on it. It DOES resize itself automatically. I've never had this problem. Just CLICK on it and it will resize itself. Hope this works for u.

And yes using Smart is ALMOST like using apy-get/Synaptic in openSUSE 10.2.

OpenOffice opens quickly coz of the OpenOffice quickstarter I think...

Cheers!

I don't mind Yast too much, I just dislike how slow it is. Has this been fixed?

[igknighted]

glad you are happy. Can't stand KDE myself, looks more like Windows 3.1 than anything else. It's bulky and unprofessional looking. It has some good things but I don't like it much.

Not to start this debate _again_ but how is KDE like windows 3.1? 3.1 had no start menu / kmenu / whatever gnome calls it, a really low quality look (kde has many transparency, shading/drop shadows and other cool composite effects (which suse turns on by default, I dont think kubuntu does)), and just an overall old-school feel, while KDE is the most customizable DE available for linux (my opinion, but based on all the data I know). I admit it can be cluttered at times, but I accept the sacrifice for greater functionality and customizability. Not trying to start up the never ending debate again, I just dont see where you are coming from on this one.

[igknighted]

I don't mind Yast too much, I just dislike how slow it is. Has this been fixed?

Yast is in fact still rather slow. There are alternative software install tools which are quicker, but I don't really bother, its not worth setting up new repo's and what not for that once every few months when I'm installing something new.

[steven8]

I really like KDE, myself. I had some issues with opesuse 10.1. I'm going to have to try 10.2 though!!

[_simon_]

Hey but it nicely fits itself if u just click on it. It DOES resize itself automatically. I've never had this problem. Just CLICK on it and it will resize itself. Hope this works for u.

And yes using Smart is ALMOST like using apy-get/Synaptic in openSUSE 10.2.

OpenOffice opens quickly coz of the OpenOffice quickstarter I think...

Cheers!

Thank you! You are right, it does resize when you click on it which I didn't realise :)

[Adamant1988]

I'm going to try the Live DVD. I'm looking forward to seeing what incompatibilities it has with my laptop. Haha.

[elijahclarity]

I don't mind Yast too much, I just dislike how slow it is. Has this been fixed? openSUSE 10.2 is the FASTEST Suse version I think. I suggest u install it and see it for urself as liveDVD would run a bit slow.

[Adamant1988]

I'm aware that live distributions run slow(er) than they normally would, but I just got done restoring windows on this thing. I'm not in a Huge rush to replace it, my first goal is to check for hardware incompatibilities and see what would be the potential pitfalls of an installation.

[ronacc]

been using opensuse 10.2 since it was beta. the package management is still not perfect but is hugely improved over 10.1 and the choice of smart or yast is built in. yast is still not as good as apt at dependencies IMHO but is improving. the interface is really smooth too.
on the ubuntu front as far as I can see feisty is already way ahead of edgy.

[gamma]

I used OpenSuse 10.2 [gnome] from about two months starting with the alphas. I must admit it was probably the best Suse release to date. My only qualms were multimedia playback and wireless networking. The installed banshee is capable of only playing oggs so one must seek a replacement. Same thing goes with totem, I had to search around on the net for a totem-xine package since gstreamer is meh on Opensuse. There is an opensource driver for my wireless card, but I'm not exactly sure where to find it, or what it's called so I ended up going with ndiswrapper and got that up and running.

OpenSuse felt very professional and complete. Banshee which half works on other distros was able to search my visited websites, emails, chat logs and files out of the box. I was amazed that my openoffice documents had preview thumbnails and beagle searched the text inside of them. Also Suse's application choices and artwork are hands down the best. All the applications installed by default are the ones I prefer (Banshee instead of Rhythmbox, F-spot instead of gThumb, Inkscape is installed by default, etc.) Artwork is amazing thanks to jimmac, who is largely responsible for the Tango icons.

I'm seriously considering switching back to OpenSuse from Ubuntu, but last time I tried I remember having speed issues. I had the opposite effect the original poster mentioned (I'm on Gnome though). Every application seemed to take twice as long to open and there was a noticeable delay at times plus I had constant hard drive access sometimes. I'm not sure what was causing it either so that's why I'm a little put off on going back. Anyone have similar experiences in terms of speed?

[_simon_]

No speed issues here, everything opens within seconds.

[Adamant1988]

No speed issues here, everything opens within seconds.

We're speaking about YaST specifically.

[gamma]

Well I meant Openoffice, Firefox and even Nautilus on the Gnome desktop. Everyone already knows YaST is slow :P.

_simon) how much ram do you have?

My issue may have something to do with the fact I only have 512MB so it's digging into the swap each time because the Gnome desktop needs to have KDElibs in memory which adds to extra ram useage.

[igknighted]

Well I meant Openoffice, Firefox and even Nautilus on the Gnome desktop. Everyone already knows YaST is slow :P.

_simon) how much ram do you have?

My issue may have something to do with the fact I only have 512MB so it's digging into the swap each time because the Gnome desktop needs to have KDElibs in memory which adds to extra ram useage.

This should only be the case when you are running KDE apps though... Suse is pretty good at not being biased to one DE or the other, theres enough packages there that gnome can be gnome and kde can be kde (at least it is now). In fact, what even more surprising is that it is GTK apps like nautilus and FF that are causing you issues. I would suspect that this issue was related to something like graphics drivers or some other hardware that wasn't quite being used properly by the OS and needed a new driver. Even with an ungodly bloated program like OO.o the work the Suse team has done to streamline it into something usably fast is tremendous.

[_simon_]

Well I meant Openoffice, Firefox and even Nautilus on the Gnome desktop. Everyone already knows YaST is slow :P.

_simon) how much ram do you have?

My issue may have something to do with the fact I only have 512MB so it's digging into the swap each time because the Gnome desktop needs to have KDElibs in memory which adds to extra ram useage.

I've got 1Gig PC3200 and running KDE.

I've got a 1.27Gig swap but so far that's never been used

[Adamant1988]

I tell you, I'm having the worst time downloading the iso for the live DVD. I left my download running last night and when I checked it this morning the browser had done it's memory leak thing and crashed on me ;_;

[igknighted]

I tell you, I'm having the worst time downloading the iso for the live DVD. I left my download running last night and when I checked it this morning the browser had done it's memory leak thing and crashed on me ;_;

Thats what you get for using firefox haha... try epiphany, its much slimmer. I don't think swiftfox is really any better than firefox here, but you might have good luck with iceweasel if you want full firefox functionality. Then there is always Opera (which is the best browser ever made, but its not open source, though it is free as in beer) and konqueror (but thats kde, which most ubuntu users dont care for) as viable options as well.

EDIT: just a thought, but you could probably wget the iso... it would probably be much faster.

[Adamant1988]

Thats what you get for using firefox haha... try epiphany, its much slimmer. I don't think swiftfox is really any better than firefox here, but you might have good luck with iceweasel if you want full firefox functionality. Then there is always Opera (which is the best browser ever made, but its not open source, though it is free as in beer) and konqueror (but thats kde, which most ubuntu users dont care for) as viable options as well.

EDIT: just a thought, but you could probably wget the iso... it would probably be much faster.

I'm on Windows. and I'm using flock.

Konquerer is probably the most amazing browser I've ever used, and that's coming from me as someone who thinks KDE looks like something playskool would produce.

Opera is great, but I tend to have tons of bookmarks, and the BlueOrganizer extension I use makes it a lot easier for me to keep them in line.

[ronacc]

adamant1988 try getting the dvd with a bittorrent client that way you can recover if ******* glitches.

gamma if you want a disro thats great for multimedia try sabayon 3.26 it comes with most (even propriatary) codecs right out ofthe box , it will play a bedroom slipper if you can stuff it in your dvd drive.

[Adamant1988]

Well, I just downloaded Opera and I'm using that to download it free of memory leaks from Flock (can't wait 'till they switch to the Firefox 2.0 code base).

When I go to download the actual .isos forgoing any hardware problems, I'll use utorrent.

[gamma]

I had a bad week with Ubuntu (filesystem corruption, crashing ethernet modules, hibernate/resume issues) so I decided to give Suse another try. I got the latest Banshee and Beagle off of the openSuse build service. I also added the Packman repo and got the gstreamer-bad and gstreamer-ugly packages as well as totem with the xine backend (weren't available for 10.2 when I used openSuse). I'm using ndiswrapper for my wifi card since I can't compile the opensource driver, but it works great. Everything seems to be working fine. I'm impressed. Suse is using 102MB of my swap when I have 300MB of ram free so I'm a little confused by that. Again I must say this is a great distro. Highly polished and a lot more professional compared to others out there.

THUMBS UP! :D