Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell News Summary - Part I: New OpenSUSE Board, KDE 4.4, and Site Changes

Chameleon hunting for a meal



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.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Register MS: "AI" More Than 80 Times in One Article. But It's Not an Article, It's Sponsored Keyword-stuffed Page.
The Register MS is being paid to actively promoted this scheme
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 09, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, July 09, 2026
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 08, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 08, 2026
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 07, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 07, 2026
Links 07/07/2026: Microsoft Cuts Doom "id Software" and Turkey Detains Journalists
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2026: Old Computer Challenge (OCC) and Hardware Tests
Links for the day
A Break From the Routine
What matters is what whistleblowers keep feeding information to us
SLAPP Censorship - Part 132 Out of 200: When You Cannot Pay a Million Pounds (1,335,520.00 United States Dollar) to Lawyers But Have a Strong Community
Techrights compensates for its fiscal poverty with a wealth of community spirit
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Czech Mate: EPO Kingmaker or Merely a Pawn in the Game?
recent "missions" of the EPO President
Fame is Not the Goal
"Fame" kills
Mental Health in Free Software Communities
clearly there is a subject that merits debate and it ought not be a taboo anymore
The Era of Sponsored Spam
There is no "era of AI", there is era of BRIBES to PRETEND there is an "era of AI"