Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part I: OpenSUSE 11.1's Good, Bad and Technical Sides

THE MORE INTERESTING NEWS this week was the availability of a KDE 3.5-based Live CD which sits inside the 'shell' of OpenSUSE 11.1.

Want classic KDE on openSUSE, without the full DVD download? Carlos Goncalves has you covered. openSUSE 11.1 Live CDs and USB images featuring KDE 3.5 are now available for download.

Created by openSUSE community member Carlos Goncalves, the KDE 3.5 Live CD and USB images contain openSUSE 11.1 plus several key updates.




There were many experiences or reviews of the latest OpenSUSE, so we split them based on the impressions left. Starting with the good side of things, here is an experience with OpenSUSE 11.1 on a Lenovo T61 computer.

My new Lenovo T61 came with Windows Vista and a plethora of bloatware. First thing I did when I got the laptop was to backup everything using Clonezilla. I quickly removed all traces of Vista, etc. and installed Ubuntu 8.10. Almost everything worked out of the box, except that I couldn't scroll with the trackpoint and the I couldn't log-in using the fingerprint reader. There are fixes for that, but sometimes they stop working and I have to redo the fixes again.


So it ended up running OpenSUSE. Here is another OpenSUSE victory where it replaced Mandriva.

I have become quite accustomed to suse. I have been using it now for over a year and I plan to use it for some more time at least.


Excitement appears in this post as well.

My Dell laptop so far runs OpenSuse 11.1 perfectly at home, although I may have to find a better sound driver at some point. Nevertheless, though not as loud as Windows XP, I am satisfied once I place my earphones in the plugin.


Here are some general tips for this version of OpenSUSE.

I'm a big time Linux supporter and I love to use it for my day to day basis. I'm a Software Consultant so I have to use XP on many occasions and every time I leave Linux and go to Windows, I always think why the assignment is forcing me to switch back to linux. In my Linux journey I used almost all the popular linux distros such as Ubuntu, openSuse, Mandriva, PCLOS 2007, DreamLinux, Fedora,Debain .. etc. So far I found openSuse 11.1 is far better in terms on usability and look and feel compare to any other distro. It just need a little bit of effort to become the most perfect desktop ever.


Moving on to the bad (or worse) part, here are some wrinkles found throughout the upgrade process. It's not all bad though:

Upgrading to OpenSuSE 11.1 Some issues.



So as I previously mentioned, I've been upgrading my machines to OpenSuSE 11.1. First of I have to save it's very impressive. As previously mentioned, it's great that ALSA works now on my laptop.


Another rather similar experience:

Quite to my surprise when I went to add repositories, I found that my update repository’s autorefresh option was disabled, so check your repositories in YaST2 under Software–Software Repositories. I also disabled the Source and Debug repos.

The gstreamer backend for phonon has proven quite buggy on my system, so I removed it and instead installed phonon-backend-xine. I’d also recommend installing kdebase3 and kdebase3-SuSE to hedge up a few of the final quirks between KDE4 and KDE3 applications.


OpenSUSE left this new user disappointed.

Opensuse works for me and it looks really nice. What isn’t good, though, is that if you want to install something like Eclipse PHP Development Platform, it won’t exactly work. It just gets extremely complicated. For me, OpenSUSE’s Failsafe mode is good BUT it’s no good if the Failsafe fails as well. Yes, I said it people - the Failsafe mode failed on me. Of all the rotton things that could happen, this broke the camel’s back. It showed me how unreliable OpenSUSE really is. Now, I’ll also say that another factor which broke the camel’s back was the Eclipse installation. Trying to INSTALL something onto OpenSUSE was too difficult and led to frustration as I had to install various things without knowing what are the correct libraries to install. I’m not going to say that Ubuntu was worse; it might have been better if it actually worked. Ubuntu’s Firefox had a better interfact, at least.


Another OpenSUSE disappointment shows the way to Debian.

OpenSUSE I just didn’t like. I was mainly just seeing if it would load on my machine and I had no real intent to switch to it.


Technical



SUSEGeek/suseuser posted several HOWTOs that are not excessively SUSE-specific, such as this one. Here are some workarounds for OpenSUSE 11.1 and also a short tweaks guide.

Before you read this, please keep in mind that there were no tweak or tips which suitable for all condition and completely work for all users. Tweak and tips will only be suitable depending your purposes, requirement and environment. As an example, I may disable a service but the same service must be keep enable on your side because I do not use the service but you do.


OpenSUSE installation instructions were published for those without the physical media but just a network connection and YaST2 gets some more attention.

More items appear in Weekly News. The index:

* Bugzilla Update to 3.2 * Contributor Gifts * Miguel de Icaza: Mono goes Accessible! * lowobu: Since when do you use (open)SuSE? * Nikesh Jauhari: Read-Write Support for NTFS partition on OpenSUSE 11.x


Doing these weekly posts is a time-consuming process, so we might drop the "Saturday" part and publish them less consistently. "Novell News Summary" might be a good fit.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The State of EPO Staff's Health in Rijswijk or The Hague
We're going to cover the EPO some more later in the month
NVIDIA Corp Lost 36% of Its "Value" Since Cheeto Inauguration, But "Gen Hey Hi" (GenAI) is Totally Not a Bubble
Selling loads of unneeded hardware based on hysterical hype; like selling shovels during a Gold Rush
 
Techrights Will Spend the Next Few Years Writing a Lot About Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
It's a growing problem
GNU/Linux Growing in East Asia, Windows by Default No More?
GNU/Linux is now on the shelf
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux 'Articles' From Linux-Hostile LLMs
It is almost always negative things and nobody can be held responsible for it except the charlatans prompting the LLMs
Links 05/04/2025: Fentanylware (TikTok) "Sale Looks Highly Imminent" (US), Stock Market Drowning in Panic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/04/2025: Moving Plants, No to Smartwatches, RAID Hygiene
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 04, 2025
Techrights Has Dealt With More Potent SLAPPs Than Violent Microsofters Begging to Hide What They Did to Women
I became accustomed to SLAPPs
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day