Most of the past week's news from Novell is about OpenSUSE, so let us dive in.

OpenSUSE 11

Just under two weeks remain before the final release of version 11.0. Even ZDNet wrote about it.

Novell has released the last public version of OpenSuse 11.0 for testing, before the software's final release later this month.

OpenSuse 11.0 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) appeared on Thursday, the same day Novell revealed strong growth in its Linux business, strengthening its position against Linux market leader Red Hat.

Some screenshots of the release candidate you will find here and a praise from ZDNet's Jason Perlow you will find here. (be aware that he admits to trolling sometimes).

I must admit, however, to having a particularly strong interest in OpenSUSE, Novell’s entry into the community Linux distro fray. It could be said that in an indirect way, there’s a little bit of my DNA in the product. Back in May of 2005, I wrote the following in a column about the fate of SuSE in Linux Magazine:

“It’s pretty darn clear to me that to make mojo, SuSE Linux Professional needs to look deep into its roots and re-birth itself as a public, open source project similar to Fedora. While Novell executives might think twice about copy-catting Red Hat and many of Novell’s critics would undoubtedly categorize such a response as a knee-jerk reaction and a Johnny-come-lately, there are a number of reasons for Fedora-izing SuSE Linux. Heck, I think it would be a better Fedora than Fedora.”

Here is another OpenSUSE rave from the east, or at least an expression of excitement.

I have been an avid openSUSE user in the past as it worked perfectly on my main workstation. However, I switched to Xubuntu as I'm more obsessed with speed and simplicity nowadays more than anything else. Since the latest version of openSUSE is about to be released and it promises some major enhancements over its predecessor, I decided to take a look at my former favorite distro to see what's been going on.

Here is another review of this latest release candidate

I’ve tried a lot of Linux distros. U/Ku/Xubuntu, Fedora, Debian (Etch), SimplyMEPIS, and dyne:bolic are a couple that I’ve tried. I’ve also tried OpenSUSE, which is the Linux distribution that fits me best. This article is about my experience with OpenSUSE 11 Release Candidate 1.

[...]

OpenSUSE is a Linux distribution that I love and OpenSUSE 11 gave me several more reasons to love it, despite some minor hiccups.

People

Elections for the OpenSUSE Board were discussed.

A week ago, AJ announced on the opensuse-project mailing-list that we (the board) have approved the proposal we've been working on since some time. It was heavily influenced by feedback we gathered from IRC meetings and the opensuse-project list (threads here and here).

Matthias Fehring had his sort of profile posted.

‘People of openSUSE’ caught up the man behind the great effort done on the German openSUSE wiki - Matthias Fehring. He is one of the system operatores of the de.opensuse.org wiki and long time openSUSE user.

In other news, Zonker prepares people for -- believe it or not -- buying boxed OpenSUSE.

In short - people pay for convenience and a bit of assurance that they’re getting something real. You and I know that the bits are just as fresh whether they’re in tasty downloaded ISO flavor or crunchy pre-made DVD flavor, but some folks just need the packaging to feel good. (And maybe to read the ingredients…)

Development

Here is an update on KDevelop and the Build Service.

Building packages for multiple distros can be a major pain — which is why we provide the openSUSE Build Service. One of the Build Service’s many features is the ability to create packages for many distros — including openSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, and Ubuntu. One of the projects making the most of the Build Service is KDevelop. We talked with KDevelop developer Amilcar do Carmo Lucas about how the KDevelop project is using the build service.

Stephan Kulow offers another glimpse at the beautiful Qt-based installer.

Today we will be taking a look at the new installer that has been developed for openSUSE 11.0, offering significant improvements over our previous version, with an incredibly appealing look, easier to complete, and a lot faster. We will also be talking to Stephan Kulow, KDE core developer and openSUSE project manager.

Cyberorg published some pretty pictures and a shot of Red Hat's PulseAudio.

Couple of weeks back I posted information about a tiny usability enhancement in simple-ccsm added by Rodrigo that enables users to switch on/off Compiz effects.

[...]

Check out other screenshots captured at various stages of openSUSE 11.0 development.

More on development in particular you can find in the latest issue of OpenSUSE Weekly News.

Welcome to issue #25 of openSUSE Weekly News!

In this week:

* People of openSUSE: Matthias Fehring * Interview: KDevelop and the openSUSE Build Service * Status Updates * Gabriel Burt: Banshee 1.0 Release Candidate 1 * Jigish Gohil: Compiz and Compiz Fusion 0.7.6 out in wild * blogs.zdnet.com: "OpenSUSE 11 RC1: The Mercedes-Benz to Ubuntu’s Volkswagen"

DeveloperWorks

Last but not least, here is a distro-specific article from IBM's DeveloperWorks. It's about OpenSUSE.

This demo shows how to extract and install the IBM€® Java™ Platform, Enterprise Edition 5 (Java EE 5) SDK that is bundled with IBM€® WebSphere€® Application Server Community Edition on the openSUSE Linux platform. It also highlights the key parameters required to configure a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) in the .bash_profile as well as point out how the default JVM and WebSphere Application Server Community Edition installation enables access for multiple users. Part 2 of this demo shows how to install WebSphere Application Server Community Edition V2 on openSUSE Linux€®.

Next up: SUSE. ⬆