Summary: OpenSUSE news from the past week

Releases and Reviews

OPENSUSE will be down over the entire weekend, but this does not prevent some progress from being made. A new version of OpenSUSE 11.1 with a newer KDE4 is now released and it is safe to say that KDE3 users ought to step up to the 4 at this stage. KDE4 also becomes the default desktop environment in future OpenSUSE releases.

openSUSE 11.2 will be released in two months, but the recently released openSUSE 11.1 KDE4 Reloaded images give us a good preview of the upcoming 11.2 version.

There is another OpenSUSE 11.1 variant called Li-f-e (an acronym) and here it is compared to its Ubuntu equivalent.

I use educational software a lot. As I am the IT admin of a local school and consult for a few more, I get the chance to see the software in action and see the results and responses ( as well as hear the complaints and/or appreciation when it comes up )

Getting ready for this new school year and needing to update and put new installs in, I have thus far boiled it down to two contenders, Ubuntu in it's Edubuntu form and openSUSE 11.1 offered in it's Li-f-e version.

TechRadar has this new review of the Shuttle X500V, which comes with OpenSUSE 11.1 preinstalled.

Just how thin can computers go? And do we actually care about the girth of our desktop tech?

Shuttle Inc certainly seems to think we do, releasing a new ultra-thin all-in-one-PC with a Linux operating system this week.

Shuttle's new X500V has openSUSE Linux 11.1 pre-configured and ready for immediate use out of the box. And it isn't a very BIG box, because the machine itself is a mere 3.6 cm thin.

Build Service

OBS is seeing some changes, such as this one.

I did some interesting changes to the Hermes instance of openSUSE.

The RPM package is updated too and put in the Factory.

Michael Schroeder has finally updated the RPM package in openSUSE to the latest upstream version 4.7.1. o/ There were LOTS of bugfixes, enhancements and internal API changes which are probably not very interesting for mere mortals...

stad 0.0.6 is released and made available via the Build Service also:

After a few requests for native SLE11 binaries of the stad daemon program, I’ve just enabled the build in the Build Service. I’ve updated the download page with the SLE11 links.

Another addition is Go-OO 3.1.1, which comes just days after OpenOffice.org 3.1.1.

The openSUSE OOo team hopes that you will be happy with this release. Though, any software contains bugs and we kindly ask you to report them, so that we could fixed them in the future releases.

Here is a new review of Novell's Go-OO.

Go-oo blends well into the spectrum. It does not harm the experience. The software is stable and runs well and performs the promised tasks with accuracy. In day-to-day use, it's as good as the official build. It's a win-win situation.

Events

Many events seem to be coming despite the tough economy. Michal Hrušecký writes about the OpenSUSE Conference and so does Roger Whittaker, who will attend.

I'm very happy indeed that I'm now able to attend the openSUSE Conference in Nuremberg later this month, and looking forward to it very much.

There are some more notes about this conference in the OpenSUSE Web site. Lenz Grimmer is apparently an invited speaker. He'll be delivering a keynote, on which Zonker elaborates in his personal Web site.

I’m happy to announce that Lenz Grimmer will be delivering the opening keynote for the first-ever openSUSE Conference. The openSUSE Conference will be held September 17 through September 20 in Nürnberg, Germany. Register today!

This is also covered in OpenSUSE News and Zonker looks forward to SCALE 8x. There are other events where OpenSUSE intends to be present and participate.

As last year FSUGitalia, with “Regione Umbria” support , and with the collaboration of ITC “A. Capitini – Vittorio Emanuele II” and OSSpg (http://www.osspg.net ) is working to organize the Software Freedom Day.

Studio

Masim Sugianto wrote about an "OpenSUSE & Zimbra" meeting that he organised (or helped organise) in his country. He also made some modest proposals for SUSE Studio.

After playing with SUSE Studio for a while, I think I have 3 suggestion to increase the usability of SUSE Studio, based on my experience building Zimbra Appliance on openSUSE 11.1.

Charlotte Betterley from Novell's PR team wrote about SUSE Studio as well. So did IT Pro, which made a new review available.

Need a custom made Linux distro but don't have time to spend hours in the console? Suse Studio produces powerful results in a matter of minutes.

More news items are in the OpenSUSE Web site; Francis Giannaros assembles another bunch of items, which is rare these days. ⬆