Page 1 of openSUSE 12.2 - Out!

OK I`m a wee bit late with this one. It`s been out a couple of weeks. But I`ve only recently got round to putting it on the metal, and thought it worth mentioning here.

This one had a rather long delay, by about two months I think. Not entirely up on the reasons why, even after reading related articles. But anyway, it`s here and I`ve installed the Gnome version. And so far the delay is looking worthwhile. Very solid, no issues or bugs of any kind at all. Gnome 3.4 is lovely, and there`s going to be a 3.6 repository available after its release too.

I like the new Plymouth splash, very neat, and also the GRUB 2 menu too, which was a bit of a surprise. Very polished. :)

Give it a go. It`s free!

I burned it on release day, but it`s been sat on my desk ready to install on the openSUSE partition, which I never use `cos of Mint :)

Mint has been absolutely awesome for me, but I can`t resist openSUSE. I had such a great experience with it from 11.4. Make a clone of your Mint and give it a go. You know you want to! :D

12.3 is out now, have started to dl it, may try to install over weekend if I find time, as my 12.2 install is broken. update should fix it, if not I may just trash it.

quick look and the reviews are good, again praising kde4, some reviews even describing it as fast, I remember when KDE first was launched and it got slated, was slow and really buggy, so good news that the team kept at it and have made it good and seems to improve each version :)

Movember 2012: http://uk.movember.com/mospace/3839949/

Hi Ad! Not done the Linux thing for ages.

Yes I’ve been eagerly awaiting the 12.3 release. Moved to KDE completely a while ago, and haven’t looked back. Not a single problem with it at all, which has been fantastic. Kubuntu has been excellent too, but what with all the changes recently that mainline Ubuntu has been introducing I figured it would only be a matter of time before it (and the other spin offs no doubt) gets affected beyond hope. Add in the fact that the missus has been having no end of trouble with Ubuntu 12.04 on her laptop, the time is now to switch to openSUSE. :)

What do you reckon to Ubuntu’s big announcements recently? I think it’s great that they are getting focussed on where they want to be, but I can’t help feeling it comes at the expense of the stability of the underlying OS. I must admit to being a fan of the Linux eye-candy, but I don’t want that to come at a cost to the quality of the system, which is why I suppose that KDE has ticked all my boxes. But what with the problems we’ve had with 12.04, and 12.10 not looking any better, I worry that spreading resources to a new display manager could be a step too far for them. For what they want to achieve, you can no longer say it’s a collaborative system imho, but an OS that happens to have a Linux base.

But back on topic, please let me know how you get on with openSUSE 12.3. I’ve just gotten some blank DVD’s to burn a copy off (the laptop doesn’t support USB boot, can you believe it?) and I’ll be having a play tonight with a view to installing it for the missus tomorrow. I’ll be putting it on my desktop later.

What happened to your 12.2 installation btw?

Well, I`ve had a wee play around 12.3 now. First impressions were a little muted as I ended up with a network/wireless connection problem. Luckily it`s affected quite a few and was easy to solve. Also, for some reason there`s no touchpad/synaptics module available in KDE`s system settings as there should be, which meant I was stuck with tap to click (eurgh). A quick Code:
su -
zypper install synaptiks did the trick, but all told I was feeling a little upset with my initial probing of 12.3.

However, I`ve now spent a couple of hours just messing about with it, just enjoying the new themes and effects, checking to see if it has all the software I need (it does, but I have to use the openSUSE Build Service for some stuff like SNES9X-Gtk, KeepassX 0.43 and Handbrake etc). What was really nice was the automatic mounting of my Nexus 7, which Ubuntu had fits over. Just plugged it in and off it went. Marvellous.

So despite my initial problems it`s proven its worth, and I`m definitely going to install it this weekend. It`s quite telling that even though it was running off a slow DVD, it was still pretty nippy, so an install to the metal should be even better.

Let us know how you get on with it. :)

cool, glad you like it, can`t remember what`s wrong with 12.2, I think it boots to command line, and then if you log in and startx it does openbox. can`t be arsed to fix it, don`t use it enough. I think maybe when I upgrade I tried to go lxde rather than kde, so maybe I tried to be clever without knowing what I was doing, wouldn`t be the first time ;)

Movember 2012: http://uk.movember.com/mospace/3839949/

Have installed now on the missus` laptop (it`s a right saga this innit, like Dallas but without the budget. Or story. Or characters). Was a bit worried, not so much for me but she gets so funny about it all being "just so". :D  However, happy to report it`s all gone swimmingly. Grabbed the ATI FGLRX driver repository from openSUSE Lizards, which has installed and is running perfectly. However I was lost for honest reasons for installing it, because the free driver was running so well. In the end only the fact that brightness control didn`t work swung it, otherwise I would have just left the free driver on. The performance was cool (as in not overheating), and the desktop was buttery smooth. Signs indeed that free drivers are motoring forwards.

I don`t know anything, but I really get the feeling that openSUSE has stepped things up in recent times. I only started using it from 11.4, but the last few releases have been much better than their Ubuntu counterparts. Maybe I`m too keen but the signs are good for this one too, so I`ll see how we go with it.

Interesting, just did an upgrade, and when it starts again, goes to command line emergency mode. Guess this is what happened last time and I couldn`t be arsed to fix it! So I`ll see what Prof Google has to say, otherwise I could delete everything that`s not in /home from Mint and install fresh.



Movember 2012: http://uk.movember.com/mospace/3839949/

I`ve never done an upgrade with any Linux so far. Always gone the fresh install route. I may try an upgrade for this openSUSE install when the time comes.

So far have to say it`s been absolutely fantastic. I added the Libre Office 4 Stable repository, did the vendor change thing, and so far perfect. Also grabbed laptop-mode-tools which I noticed didn`t come in the default setup. With Ubuntu on this lappy, there was all sorts of freezes and hangs every two minutes. I mean all the time. I could never figure out why, but there was a big ongoing bug report over on their Launchpad site about it. Lots of people with the same issue, and some fixes too but none worked. Another thing it used to do was screen flicker intermittently. As if there was something wrong with the graphics drivers, or in the settings. I tried all sorts of things to fix it, re-installing drivers and playing about in settings, various boot options etc, but nothing worked.

Since installing openSUSE, there have been none of these issues at all. Really, really pleased, and the missus loves it. Prefers KDE too. She says "the interface isn`t as footery as Ubuntu". Says it all really. :D