The first early build of openSUSE 11.0 has arrived. Here is an E-mail from Stephan:

Hi!

We'd like to kick start the development of openSUSE 11.0 in releasing the current state of Factory as Alpha0 release.

Since the release of 10.3, we checked in 2187 packages including such pretty fundamental package updates as:

- gcc 4.3.0 - kernel 2.6.24-rc4 - X.org 7.3 - KDE 3.5.8 - KDE 4.0 RC1 - CUPS 1.3.4 - gdb 6.7.1 - Alsa 1.0.15 - Gimp 2.4 - Yast2 2.16

The change between 10.3 and Alpha0 is pretty big, but it still works pretty nicely. So please join the openSUSE 11.0 development in downloading, testing and using Alpha0 or daily updated Factory distribution.

The most annoying bugs are as usual listed on http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs_11.0_dev

So far there are some glitches in the installation process, that are mostly harmless. But the new kernel in particular can cause some regressions we would love to hear about through bugzilla.

You can get it from http://en.opensuse.org/Development_Version#Downloads

Greetings, Stephan

Copy here along with some feedback.

Screenshots here.

The first alpha release of OpenSuSE 11.0 is now available for download. OpenSuSE 11.0 integrates a number of new packages, including GCC 4.3.0, the latest Linux 2.6.24 development kernel, X.Org 7.3, ALSA 1.0.15, GIMP 2.4, and Yast2 2.16. OpenSuSE 11.0 Alpha 0 is available as a DVD or via KDE and GNOME CD s

The second batch of weekly news was posted along with news from Indonesia.

Masim informs us that the Indonesian openSUSE Community’s (OpenSUSE-ID) Annual Meeting will be held in Jakarta on 8th December 2007. This is their monthly meeting that becomes the first annual meeting to prepare the project of openSUSE-ID in 2008.

Several OpenSUSE reviews seem to have caught more attention than most. Here is one such review.

I don’t often try a new distro seriously (I have a folder full of QEMU images, but it’s just not the same as a proper installation), but recently I felt the itch and downloaded OpenSUSE 10.3 and installed it on my laptop.

Here is another review.

I haven’t actually used it much, but so far I am very impressed.

OpenSUSE received some decent scores in last week's comprehensive comparison in DistroWatch Weekly. Here are the results in a fairly concise and tabular form:

	Ubuntu	PCLinuxOS	openSUSE	Fedora	Mint	Sabayon	MEPIS	Freespire
Ease of installation
Ease of use
Package management
Speed
Average	8.75	8.5	7.75	6.5	9	6	7.25	8

The OpenSUSE Web site does a profile of Keith Kastorff.

The ‘People of openSUSE’ publishes this week one more interesting interview, one of the most active openSUSE community members - Keith Kastorff - the man who has his own Beagle and spends his time helping people at SUSE Forums.

Francis added a demo of KDE 4 (on OpenSUSE) with emphasis on KWin. It's all in his blog.

I’ve now updated to the latest openSUSE KDE4 Packages and got another video (first one being: KDE 4.0 RC1+ Video Tour) to add, and it’s one all about the new KDE 4.0 KWin composite; that is, the new desktop effects that will be available with KDE 4.0.

Thanks to Stephan's work you can finally watch the new YaST on Qt4 (preview).

Here's a screenshot of what can be done with a little editing of the styles...

That's all for this week. People have begun taking their December vacations, so there's not much news to report. ⬆