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OpenSUSE 13.1 Released and Reviewed 113

Posted by Soulskill from the onward-and-upward dept.
sfcrazy writes "The openSUSE team just announced the release of openSUSE 13.1. There are some core points which set openSUSE apart from the popular Ubuntu distro. While Ubuntu has become a more or less Canonical-owned project, openSUSE is becoming more and more community-driven. Looking at the recent controversies around Ubuntu and their move toward mobile platforms, openSUSE seems to be a great option for desktop users."
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OpenSUSE 13.1 Released and Reviewed More

OpenSUSE 13.1 Released and Reviewed

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  • Third party software (Score:4, Interesting)

    by msobkow ( 48369 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @11:17PM (#45469677) Homepage Journal

    I wonder what the status is on third-party software like DB/2 LUW, Oracle, and Sybase ASE. I know Ubuntu can only handle DB/2 LUW. Oracle and Sybase want a RedHat core.

    Ah well, it doesn't matter. I've got DB/2 LUW, PostgreSQL, and MySQL running under Debian, and Oracle, Sybase ASE, and SQL Server on a Win7 box, so my database needs are covered.

    I've run SuSE in the past though, and did like it. To be honest I can't remember why I switched. I think that was an actual dead machine issue -- I lost a couple of boxen in a car accident about 10 years ago.

    • Re:Third party software (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cold fjord ( 826450 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @11:42PM (#45469785)

      From what I've seen in the past, if you're looking to run big "name brand" software, your only real Linux choices are Red Hat and Suse if you want to run on a certified OS. It makes no sense to run software costing $100k+ on uncertified platforms.

      I've always preferred Suse to Red Hat myself. Suse was always much closer to other Unix releases in the way it did things compared to Red hat which tended to go off in its own direction. Unfortunately I almost always end up having to deal with Red Hat anyway.

      • I'm curious to know in what ways Suse is more like Unix? Once upon a time my company had a bunch of SLES installs, then we moved to Debian, and now we have a couple of RH machines. Maybe it's my perspective but I've found SLES and RHEL to be basically identical apart from all the GUI garbage that gets layered on top.

      • I am surprised Debian stable is not supported?

        Corporations and developers hate change and like things to freeze in time witness Solaris, IE 6, Java 1.4.x etc. Debian stable fits the bill well.

        I know Ubuntu has many fan boys here, but it makes a crappy choice for a developer if your platform changes major shit out every 6 months and updates make more radical changes than Solaris or Windows updates.

        Shit Redhat is still based on kernel 2.6 and RHES 5.x is a 2006 era kernel with some patches! Sucks for a deskto

        • Re:Third party software (Score:5, Informative)

          by LDAPMAN ( 930041 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2013 @01:16AM (#45470117)

          There is more to support than being stable. With SLES/SLED and RHES there is a level of engineering support you just can't get with the others. They actually pay people to help you get your app running right and they answer the phone when something breaks.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Fallso ( 2997549 )

            There is more to support than being stable. With SLES/SLED and RHES there is a level of engineering support you just can't get with the others. They actually pay people to help you get your app running right and they answer the phone when something breaks.

            True, but you can now get "vendor" support on other distros as well. One that springs to mind is Ubuntu server edition (although as I say that I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would choose that over RHEL/SLES)

      • From what I've seen in the past, if you're looking to run big "name brand" software, your only real Linux choices are Red Hat and Suse if you want to run on a certified OS. It makes no sense to run software costing $100k+ on uncertified platforms.

        No problem. Give me any OS and I will "certify" it. For a mere $1000. That's nothing when you run $100k+ software, right?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Pretty much, in the past, I have found all the major DB vendor offerings to run on all the major Linux distros, RH, Suse, Ubuntu. They may not be officially supported but they still run.

      DB2 Enterprise supports Linux
      Oracle Supports Linux
      Sybase Supports Linux
      Informix supports Linux and even
      Ingress supports Linux

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Billly Gates ( 198444 )

        I would not bet my job on a non certified OS though.

        If an update to Ubuntu brings down the warehouse and it is found that you were the one who approved the non supported platform where Sybase wont even return your phone calls to restart your business, then do not be surprised if a VP leaves a nice boot imprint on your buttocks as he pushed you out the door after his flight from corporate headquarters.

        SuSE enterprise support many of these products (not all). Of course Oracle wants you to use Solaris or at le

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by luxifr ( 1194789 )

          I run CentOS in a VM at home for this reason as it is very close to what they use at work which is thankfully free. Would not put it on a real server though doing anything important. :-)

          meh... CentOS is not just "very close" to RHEL but in fact the same... they build it out of red hat sources with red hat build configs... basically it's just a recompiled red hat... the only reason I wouldn't use CentOS is that its community (leaders) is somewhat too unstable for my taste... it wasn't that long ago when you couldn't be sure if CentOS would even continue to exist because of internal disputes... that said: there is an alternative: Scientific Linux... it's basically the same as CentOS with som

          • Point is ass covering.

            That VP or rep for vendor wont listen when you tell them that.

            SL! = centos. Different build process with different libs and gcc settings.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by msobkow ( 48369 )

        "Runs on the Linux distro of our choice" is not the same as "Supports Linux." Most databases with the exception of DB/2 LUW do not run under Debian or Ubuntu, even if you use "alien" to install them. Maybe if you surf the net and futz with them for a few days you could get them to run, but that's not "supporting" the distro. It most certainly is not an acceptable situation for running that DB in anything even vaguely resembling a production environment.

        As per usual, IBM has shown that you can build a

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @11:19PM (#45469687)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • (Twenty-four months from now)

      sfcrazy writes:

      Hey guys. If you are interested, I have formed a startup which makes a product called sfcrazy OS. It does not adopt existing technologies or paradigms from any other operating systems. We also believe it performs much better.

    • But I *am* fed up with Ubuntu!

  • Why switch? (Score:3)

    by rueger ( 210566 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @11:35PM (#45469759) Homepage
    I'll likely try running it off of a USB stick at some point this week, but will ask anyhow:
    If I'm generally happy with Mint Linux (64, v. 15) what things in openSUSE might convince me to change?

    • Re:Why switch? (Score:5, Funny)

      by TrollstonButterbeans ( 2914995 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @11:43PM (#45469787)
      For starters, OpenSUSE has the GEICO lizard on the box.

      This gives you a calming feeling of security and road-testedness. Plus because SUSE is an acronym.

      • > For starters, OpenSUSE has the GEICO lizard on the box.

        Why the hell was this moderated "funny"?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pnutjam ( 523990 )
      Same boat... I have a laptop running Mint. I find myself switching between OpenSuSE and Mint. In my experience, OpenSUSE generally provides better hardware support and is more stable overall. Mint and Ubuntu have more packages, but OpenSuSE is really catching up.
      I enjoy having access to YAST, which give an identical interface through the console or the GUI. OpenSuSE also doesn't try to dictate the user interface, you can use XFCE, Gnome, KDE, or several other options.

  • The real question, is, does any of the recent controversies surrounding Canonical affect users in a practical sense (or mainly from a political/development/long term sense)?

    Last version of OpenSUSE I tried was great, but, I kept having small problems (mainly related to installing Nvidia drivers which actually broke the system, steam support and other Yum issues).Technically, the nvidia issue isn't their fault, but on the other hand, it would be expected that Nvidia users need proprietary drivers.

    OpenSUSE de

    • I used SuSE from 2004 until the fall of 2011, when I switched to Mint. I like both of them, and Mint "just works" out of the box better than SuSE. The lack of nVidia proprietary drivers is a showstopper for my purposes, and requiring root privileges to access NTFS drives might be a security feature, but to me it's a headache. I say all this in the spirit of constructive criticism. However, once you get SuSE configured like you want it, it runs like a champ. I love YAST; it's everything all in one place.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        I think that was around the earlier 12 versions. Those did have some problems, but those were addressed pretty quickly. I can't wait to see how 13.1 stacks up on my x2go server.

  • I've been using OpenSuSE since the 9.0 era. I had tried it prior to that and found it unusable on my system simply because it defaulted to some gosh-awful resolution. The icons were the size of fly specs. I didn't have time to figure out how to fix it, so I went back to my old OS. They fixed this in the 9.0 release and I've used it ever since.

    One of SuSE's key features, whether you're using the community version or the paid/enterprise release, is the configuration tool (YAST, "Yet Another Setup Tool"). That

    • CentOS 5.x is 2006 era technology. It is quite dated and is from the same era as Windows Server 2003.

      If it aint broke do not fix it deal is there but CentOS 6.4 has some of things you are talking about with more up to date tools. They are still dated too as 6.x came out in 2009/2010 time frame but closer to today.

  • OpenSuzzy! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2013 @12:49AM (#45470029)

    I switched! Yes, I did. OMGITSOCOOL!!!1 But the Kay Dee Eee is so busy. Too busy for me. But at least it composites. Not like that Mint+Mate stuff. I got AMD but those drivers suck so I got NVidia after I tried the Intel driver on my laptop and the graphics were good but I could not get fast frames so I put in the NVidia 743 Ti X v2 and IT. WAS. SO. FAST. but then the dual heads would not work and I had to make the xorg.conf thing from a poast but it worked so do You Want To Buy My AMD card? it's really good but the X stuff LOL not so great. Zypper is weird and I like debs more but hey it works and the RPMS don't have any stinky Unity LOL that is some major fail and now I have the LXDE with openSuSE and it's nice with fluxbox BUT remember don't try rat poison I couldn't use that one LOL it had no themes and it covers my whole backgrounds WTF??. The LXDE isn't over busy like the KDE buzzz buzzz buzzzz in my HEAD with all those BUTTONS omg and tabs EveryWhere like wtf I need two mice just to configure this thing. BTW what is Akonadi?? It's trying to get my PIMS? and I had to remove it but now I get errors when I start the KDE but that's ok because I use LXDE LOL. Oh yeah and Klipper. But I tried it cuz some body on SlashDOT told me OPENsuse is for grownups and I was like YEAH that's me way grownup in fact I'm old and can't see good so use BIGGER FONTS please kthx. Can someone tell me what AKANODI is?? oh and Nepomuk. There are MILLIONS of pages on how to remove Nepomuk and Akanodi and I think I need to get them off my OPeNsuse fast or my memory and stuff will be gone..... is it OpenSUse or OPenSUSE or Opensuse or OpensusE or OPENSUSE or openSuse or what? wtf is akanodi? come on guys what is it for? google doesn't know and that's weird because google know everything and all I can find is how to remove it but someone said it would mess up my OPenSUse and I like it so I don't know what to do??????? oh right I already removed it this morning gawd its so hard to remember what I did back then but I remember it tried Kali last night and wow that is creepy its got all this cr4ckzor stuff for breaking passwords which is good because I forget them a lot so yea, just don't get spooked by the black theme and all but yeah try openSUse because I did and I did it before you noob LOL and its good stuff.

    Lates.

  • Still no MonoDevelop 4.2 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by KlomDark ( 6370 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2013 @01:16AM (#45470119) Homepage Journal

    When are we gonna get a Linux distro with the modern version of MonoDevelop.

    Call it a trap all you want, it's still a dream of mine to write MVC 4 apps under Linux, using the most recent version of MonoDevelop.

    • When are we gonna get a Linux distro with the modern version of MonoDevelop.

      Call it a trap all you want, it's still a dream of mine to write MVC 4 apps under Linux, using the most recent version of MonoDevelop.

      If you need MonoDevelop then you are ostensibly a developer. As a developer, can you not build and install it yourself?

  • YUCK.

    This is related to the Novell/Microsoft deal from last decade before Novell sold its assets including Suse.

    Just look at the text in those pictures? I feel like its Linux 2002 all over without the font hinting.

  • "An OS for grown-ups"? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2013 @04:54AM (#45470871) Homepage

    openSUSE 13.1 review – an OS for grown-ups

    If you have to call it "an OS for grown-ups" it makes it sound like it really isn't.

    Did you mean hipsters?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It was a terrible "review" anyway. It was a cut-paste job of the release notes, interspersed with ads for the blogger network, and occasional comments of "I use it and it's great!".

  • Excellent installer! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by emblemparade ( 774653 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2013 @05:39AM (#45471041)

    openSUSE's brilliance is that it allows to choose the desktop you want during installation. This is vastly preferable to Ubuntu's requirement of downloading different flavors (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, GNOME Remix). I also imagine that it's easier for devs, because it involves less packaging and distribution work.

    I'm sticking with Xubuntu myself, because I much prefer the Debian way of doing things. Still, it's heartwarming to see that some things *can* be done better.

  • How are the packages? (Score:3)

    by umafuckit ( 2980809 ) on Wednesday November 20, 2013 @09:32AM (#45471887)
    I like SuSE. It was the first Linux distro I seriously used but in the end I switched to Ubuntu because often found myself having problems finding software on SuSE. If a piece of software or a newer version wasn't available through main repos, I recal spending ages on sites such as Pacman trying to find the right packages and resolve dependency issues. Is the situation better now? If so, I'd be tempted to switch back.
  • "While Ubuntu has become a more or less Canonical-owned project, openSUSE is becoming more and more community-driven."

    I recall something about Microsoft promising not to sue developers as long as they acknowledge Microsofts patent claims against Linux and agree they don't own their own code and undertake not to work on OpenSuSE in company time. Not much community driving going on there that I can see.

    Microsoft’s Patent Pledge for Individual Contributors to openSUSE.org [microsoft.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lbbros ( 900904 )
      I did not acknowledge anything (I'm an openSUSE community member working on KDE), I only acknowledged a manifesto and code of conduct when I signed up to be an openSUSE member.

  • Suse is just a European Redhat.

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