Summary: OpenSUSE events, new board members, many technical posts, and changes to the OpenSUSE.org Web site
MANY posts about OpenSUSE have appeared over the past week. Here is a concise overview of developments and observations.
Events
FOSS.in enjoyed some
OpenSUSE presence and
so will SCALE, which has a deadline coming around the same time as
Christmas celebrations by OpenSUSE staff. The main development though was the
hyped up announcement of the new openSUSE Board.
The full Board will consist of:
* Bryen Yunashko
* Henne Vogelsang
* Michael Löffler (chair)
* Pascal Bleser
* Pavol Rusnak
* Rupert Horstkötter
This announcement was ushered in by
key OpenSUSE people, including
Zonker.
Novell's Zonker
Joe Brockmeier's controversial gig in London is not forgotten. Earlier this week we wrote about
Brockmeier being slammed for lying about the Microsoft/Novell deal. He is again sort of
misusing Moglen's position of authority ("Have Faith in the GPLv2"), which is ironic given that his employer attacked the GPLv2, after which he joined this company and started to defend its actions, for a paycheck. Steve Stites
writes:
"Eben Moglen and all of the other illuminaries of the Open Source movement said that the Microsoft-Novell agreement complied with the letter of GPL2 and grossly violated the spirit of GPL2. One of the mandates in designing GPL3 was that GPL3 had to prevent such cynical manipulations of the GPL."
Brockmeier wrote a
variety of other things, he spoke about
social media,
spoke to Stormy Peters and also
spoke with FLOSS Weekly about:
openSUSE 11.2, the free and open source Linux operating system distribution from Novell.
Releases
Ben Kevan is still
building Chrome for OpenSUSE, as well as writing a lot about KDE (4.4). With screenshots
floating out there, KDE becomes
the centre of attention to some.
I have to admit when I first thought or heard of this feature in KDE 4.4, I wasn’t really excited. I thought.. now why the hell would I want that.
Then I started using it.. and found quite a few usage scenario’s for it.
To quote
some more KDE 4.4 on OpenSUSE posts:
KDE SC 4.4 Beta 1 has been released, and of course I couldn’t stay still. Thanks to the friendly openSUSE Build Service, there were packages available, so I just pointed my zypper sources to KDE:KDE4:UNSTABLE:Desktop repository, adjusted a few other things (mainly other third-party repositories) and updated.
Kevan also looks at
the installation process of OpenSUSE 11.2 under the latest VirtualBox. This
new review of the same release agrees that it's promising.
I would have preferred to have a bit more of a shiny version to introduce, but overall through the years openSUSE is the most consistently stable and polished desktop Linux available. It and its big brother SLED are used by government agencies, big businesses, education departments, security specialists, and everyday desktop users like yourself. One release with a few rough edges does not negate its otherwise exemplary track record.
openSUSE is available in several formats. The install DVD is a large 4.3 gigabyte image with lots of software and your choice of desktop systems. The popular live CDs come in KDE and GNOME varieties and offers a nice stack of apps to get started. You can learn more at the openSUSE Website.
Well, OpenSUSE 11.2 is
hitting store shelves -- a sign of maturity for the GNU/Linux desktop as a whole.
Retail versions of openSUSE 11.2 are once again available. For the first time, the retail box is being handled by a partner, open-slx.
Technical
The end of SaX2 in OpenSUSE was mentioned on a couple of occasions before [
1,
2], but it
still begs for responses.
HowToForge has a bunch of new articles about OpenSUSE 11.2 [
1,
2,
3] and new HOWTOs in other Web sites include:
Scott Morris, who wrote for Linux Journal last week, is still
writing about OpenSUSE but not as often as he used to.
Leftovers
OpenSUSE Weekly News
reaches a special number which does not escape the attention of
key people who also share
this audio recording. Web site changes can be seen in OpenSUSE.org [
1,
2] and
OpenFATE suddenly reappears too. It
has been a while.
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