Ben Kevan’s Blog

5 Days on openSUSE 11.1 was an early X-Mas present

I have been quite busy with a major project with work and that’s kept me from being able to write as much about openSUSE 11.1 as I have about previous versions. The lack of content from me in no way be taken as a dissapointment because my 5 day report on openSUSE 11.1 is pretty good.

So here’s a quick configuration:
Main Usage: Everyday enterprise use
Computer: Dell Latitude D820
Operating System: openSUSE 11.1
Desktop Environment: KDE 3.5.10
Display Driver: NVIDIA Beta 180.16

Here’s my screenshot:

First, I must point out that openSUSE 11.1 can be downloaded from the following locations:
DVD-32bit - openSUSE Linux 11.1 DVD - 32bit
DVD-64bit - openSUSE Linux 11.1 DVD - 64bit
openSUSE Gnome Live CD - 32 bit
openSUSE Gnome Live CD - 64 bit
openSUSE KDE 4 Live CD - 32 bit
openSUSE KDE 4 Live CD - 64 bit

Here are some major package version changes from openSUSE 11.0:
- Kernel 2.6.27.7
- KDE 4.1.3 & 3.5.10
- GNOME 2.24
- Mono 2.0

Now to my 5 days of openSUSE 11.1. First, after I installed I had to convert to the Compiz packages without the NOMAD patch (which was pretty much a known issue) and I was fully up and running without a hitch. First things I notice is the speed increase in boot (I’ll provide a bootchart diagram later to find out where that increase actually came from) and the speed improvements seen in zypper.

Again, I use this machine every day in an enterprise environment. Applications I run daily are:

Lotus Notes 8.5 Beta 2
VMware Workstation 6.5.x
Kontact
Opera
Yakuke
Amarok
Pidgin

All applications ran seemlessly. This was by far the simpliest upgrade I’ve had with any linux distribution and expect openSUSE 11.2 to be even easier.

On another note I played around with openSUSE 11.1 in a VM running KDE 4.1.3 and was astonished on how much further it was compared to the build of KDE that shipped with openSUSE 11.0. Now my only hope is that openSUSE 11.2 is on a 9 month release cycle and is released with KDE 4.3 which is due out at the end of June.

I’m hoping to have some time to write more about openSUSE 11.1, but only time will tell. Maybe just a nice screenshot walkthrough of the installation of KDE 4 Live CD, Gnome Live CD and DVD based installation with KDE 3.5.10.

On another note I would like to know if anyone would be willing to help me write some content on my site. Any inquiries can be sent to ben.kevan/at/gmail[dot]com.

I ask for help because Novell in the past has been known to have marketing issues, and I’d like to make sure that openSUSE doesn’t have this issue since to me, it is the best Linux distribution out there.

Tags: 11.1, gnome, kde, opensuse, review

PCLinuxOS 2009 Beta 2 - Review, Thoughts and Screenshots

With all the ranting and raving of PCLinuxOS 2007 I decided to give PCLinuxOS 2009 Beta 2 a shot. I started by downloading and launching the Live CD in a virtual machine. Here are a few screen shots I captured.

So why did I decide to give PCLinuxOS a shot? Quite frankly I was looking at some free solutions for an enterprise edition based on the DE that I prefer (KDE), along with a distribution that would be stable and easy to use. Another intriguing thing to be was their choice to stay with KDE 3.5.10 on a new release (something I admire, because I do not thing KDE 4 is ready for every day production use.

After I booted up the live CD I opted not to play around but to just go ahead and install it. This process was quite painstakingly easy.

Above is a screen shot of every step throughout the installation process. It was, and is as easy as that. I am not quite sure about the removal of the drivers at the beginning, but I’ll look into why that is required (it didn’t make a difference since I was running a vmware driver).

After the installation I decided to play around with it a tiny bit, to see what versions of and what overall packages were included. This is where my disappointment started setting in. I understand PCLinuxOS would be targeted for a more stable / enterprise style use, with very stable applications, and an environment that doesn’t change often. However, some of the applications included surprised me, most notably openoffice.org 2.4.1.

Here are a few screen shots I decided to snap after the installation, but before I logged on and checked out the versions of some of the apps. I actually liked that this is the time when it asked for a user and the root password.

Now that I’ve got all that accomplished I went ahead and logged on, and checked out some of the vital applications for my daily production use.

Now some more screen shots of some things I found quite interesting like the PCLinuxOS Control Center, and an interesting KIO system:/applications

The first screen shot I included is for the Control Center which if you’re familiar with openSUSE is similar to YaST, which I believe is superior but Control Center did have some advantages, and I think the basic naming of some of the Control Center modules would make the transition for some Windows users very easy. Here’s a simple screen shot of the Control Center, and I hope to give a good comparison between PCLinuxOS Control Center and YaST.

Another very interesting thing they included was a way to manage compiz. I think this is a method that openSUSE should actually incorporate. Here’s what they had within the system:/application KIO.

Lastly is a screen shot of the applications KIO that I’ve praised in the last 2 rantings above.

Overall PCLinuxOS 2009 Beta 2 seems to be a good alternative for openSUSE in the enterprise space, but the lack of major repositories, major community support, corporate funding and some vital outdated applications (mainly openoffice.org) are the things that would keep me from using it. However, I applaud them for choosing to go with KDE 3.5.10 and not rushing to 4.1.x. I really wish openSUSE would take a second thought about keeping KDE 3.5.10 in openSUSE 11.2 which will be due out in about 9 months and a few days.

Tags: pclinuxos, review

openSUSE 11.1 YaST preview - What’s the next step?

With the latest builds of YaST, I would have to say it is far from “Yet another Setup Tool”. I consider it “The ultimate Setup Tool”. That’s right, I think YaST which ships with openSUSE is the most complete, and comprehensive configuration / management tool. Furthermore in openSUSE 11.1 YaST is being shipped with many enhancemnts in the printer, software repositories, partitioner and more.

In this writing I’ll just show you some screenshots of the newly redesigned yast module gui’s. However later I will show more detail on how to use several of them including the newly revamped printer, partitioner one etc.

So lets start off with the printer module.

Software Repository module

Partitioner module

So there you have some quick previews of the revamped modules. Now.. onto the real wonder.. that being “What’s Next?”.

I think YaST as a standard setup tool across multiple distributions would be the “right step” for the normal home user. To put it in Windows terms, it’s like Control Panel on crack. Zonker talks about splitting YaST from openSUSE for it to be forked to other distributions in this posting of his.

Sorry this isn’t a more in depth review of the individual modules, like I said earlier, that’ll come later (as long as time permits).

So here’s a poll.. just wondering if you think YaST should be ported or not:

Tags: opensuse, review, yast