Here is the first part among a short series. These digests have become too large to fit a single post sensibly.

OpenSUSE 10.3 Reviews

OpenSUSE 10.3 is officially out of the bag and a series of quick reviews have emerged. Here isthe review from ReviewLinux.Com:

openSUSE 10.3 was released today October 4, 2007 and I am going to take a First Look at this Linux OS. It's GNOME desktop is what I installed off the DVD and I have a few pictures plus a short flash video of the desktop.

Here is another review.

While OpenSUSE 10.3 is a robust and stable distro, I feel that Novell is throwing in “the bleeding edge” as a test platform for SLED. Instead of pushing new software, the team should focus on improving YaST which indeed has new gnome-like icons but inside it’s the same stiff control center. On the other hand, I am really impressed with the hardware compatibility, the only peripheral that didn’t work out of the box is the webcam. I’m also happy to see that the fonts have improved since the last release. It’s defenately the best looking linux distribution out there. To sum it up, OpenSUSE 10.3 is just like a luxurious car: beautiful and powerful but uses lots of gas.

OpenSUSE Screenshots

Several sites have published not a review, but a collection of screenshots that had been grabbed from the installation of the final release of OpenSUSE 10.3. Here is one gallery and here is another.

OpenSUSE 10.3 Pre-release

Earlier in the past week, a look was taken at 3-D effects in the new OpenSUSE.

In openSUSE 10.3 with the package for desktop effects, Compiz, is now a version 0.5.6 and the new things are many. Compiz comes from the start and contains some useful effects. To get the real “Hollywood” effects you can download Compiz Fusion.

There was also another sneak peek at various improvements that the new version incorporates.

With this last article the Sneak Peeks series comes to an end for this release. But don’t worry: it’s tightly packed with an extra share of information on the latest openSUSE 10.3 goodies! Today we’re going through all those things that either didn’t get the chance to have their own article, or are extra convenient small improvements that haven’t been properly covered.

Here is a review of an earlier version of the 64-bit edition.

Finally, I got the time to write about my experience with Suse Linux 10.3 in the past one week of usage.

Finally, here is the press release about the release:

Community distribution includes everything a user needs to get started with Linux, including enhanced user interface, installation tools and multimedia support

This is probably the most formal announcement, among very many.