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1 • OpenSuse (by Guido on 2020-07-13 00:56:38 GMT from Philippines)
OpenSuse was the first distro, that I had installed on my computers 13 years ago. It is really nice and reliable. But what can you do with a PC that can not play any video file? It becomes as a desktop more or less useless!
2 • Video not playing and codecs problem. (by Bobbie Sellers on 2020-07-13 01:55:15 GMT from United States)
I used to have similar problems but at some point I Googled codecs and found a package
online with a lot of codecs and it solved a lot of my problems at that point.
I have looked and currently using DuckDuckGo I searched on the following
phrase "video codecs for linux" doing a bit of reading and avoiding the
discussion of Ubuntu codecs installation, but the more general advice
you might be able to find <http://lindesk.com/2008/09/adding-support-for-almost-all-video-formatscodecs-in-linux/>.
If you read it carefully you will find most of the information you need as well as link
to download the codecs.
It also talks about VLC and how it should handle most of the video formats used,
Now this will not be so simple for new users of Linux but I managed to find it about
7 years after I started with Linux when I got interested in playing anime on the
computer. As long as Mandriva was around I paid for and bought the
PowerPacked version which had the codecs included.
I do not know if these will work with OpenSUSE or not but it seems worth the
attempt by someone using the system already.
bliss
3 • @Jesse, VirtualBox (by WhatMeWorry on 2020-07-13 02:03:52 GMT from United States)
I notice you've been having problems with VBox. Last week it was Mint, this week it's OpenSuse. I'd venture that the problem is with VBox. While "vmsvga" is the default for Linux, it doesn't work most times. "vboxvga" works sometimes, but "vboxsvga" works best. (3D acceleration must be unchecked, or it will revert to "vmsvga".) Both Mint and OpenSuse run full-screen, and adjust resolution without resorting to settings. Even Wayland will display full-screen, although it will not respond to "Right-control+f". I'm running VBox 6.1.8
4 • @1, OpenSuse (by WhatMeWorry on 2020-07-13 02:11:57 GMT from United States)
OpenSuse has pretty much any software available in other distros, you just have to enable the proper repos. Google "1 click install." And forums are also there for asking.
Codecs:
https://opensuse-guide.org/codecs.php
Installing VLC also helps.
5 • OpenSuse (by Will Senn on 2020-07-13 02:55:40 GMT from United States)
OpenSuse is a class act operating system... if you can stomach rpms/yum/yast and all - which I personally detest. But once you get it running, it's pretty smooth and easy. The so called '1 click installs' are great if your combination of software and system is supported, which in my experience can be a bit spotty, but if not, you might be able to coerce the system into installing anyway, but then you might go to dependency hell. I'm no expert, but I'm thinking this might be why debian based distros have the giant's share of the market... That said, I like OpenSuse over any other rpm distro (RedHat, Centos, Fedora, etc).
6 • OpenSuse Leap 15.2 (by Alberto on 2020-07-13 03:21:09 GMT from Uruguay)
Hello. A little after its release I downloaded OpenSuse Leap 15.2 and installed the KDE desktop. (as a fact I'm using it to write this). As for restricted codecs, I first tried the old 'one-click' option, but realized it doesn't work anymore. After some searching I found a web page which addressed this and also provided a very useful alternative: adding the necessary codecs by using the terminal. It was very simple, just copying and pasting. It worked fine and I now I have no problems at all when it comes to playing any kind of video.
However, I've had troubles with Wifi which I haven't been able to solve (since I also have internet access via Ethernet, this has not been a dealbreaker).
There was something else that has worried me, though. I got the impression that Suse Linux is subjecting OpenSuse to a process of deep transformation. It wouldn't surprise me if we saw in the more or less near future that access to OpenSuse were only possible under some kind of registration, while still being maintained free of cost. I would like to know what other people think about this (it could well be my very own subjective point of view).
Any advice about Wifi would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
7 • Upstream binary packages (by Andy Prough on 2020-07-13 03:27:12 GMT from United States)
> @Jesse said "it only works for users who are comfortable with downloading software manually and know to check for updates on a regular basis. The distribution's package manager will not help them."
This is one of the big benefits of systemd like MX and The Arch based distros with their AUR packages. The system itself can manage the updating of the upstream binary packages. MX seems to manage it through scripting for the individual packages as long as you install them through the MX Package Installer. On Arch based systems you can use an AUR manager like trizen that will handle installation and updates for you.
8 • @5 Dependency hell & marketshare (by Titus_Groan on 2020-07-13 04:16:03 GMT from New Zealand)
sadly, "dependency hell" is not exclusive to the .rpm platform.
in fact it has been years since I have had such issues with either .deb or .rpm platforms.
regarding market share of .deb vs .rpm platforms, I believe your bias is showing.
9 • OpenSUSE and make it simple (by matt on 2020-07-13 04:50:44 GMT from United States)
I tried OpenSUSE in a vm recently for the first time in my 15ish years as linux user. I liked it more than I thought I would. It's fairly easy to install, has lots of packages, and YAST is a pretty powerful tool. I think suse has it's own way of doing things, and if you're used to deb or red hat based systems, you have to take some time to learn their way of doing things. Once you get used to it, it is a good os overall I think. Also, I think they do a good polishing each desktop environment. I would even say it's as good as buntu or mint for new users.
For the discussion around packages in linux, I always just go with official repos. I can't think of anything I need that requires using snaps, flatpaks, or appimages. The only app image I've ever installed was Balen Etcher for flashing usb drives, and there is other software capable of doing that.
I'm not sure what the future holds for package management in linux. I'm a big fan of apt and deb pkgs, but it seems snaps/flatpak/appimage could become more popular.
I wonder how popular NIX and GUIX will become. Both projects are really interesting.
10 • @8 (by matt on 2020-07-13 04:55:58 GMT from United States)
I can't think of a time where I've experienced dependency hell. I just use linux on the desktop, so maybe it's different in corporate/business environment, but using debian and apt I've never had a problem with dependencies. Seems to be a thing of the past
11 • Codecs and multimedia applications on openSUSE (by eco2geek on 2020-07-13 05:29:39 GMT from United States)
Like some other Linux distros, openSUSE doesn't include legally-encumbered multimedia codecs by default. It didn't use to play MP3s out of the box until the patent expired, for example. It leaves applications like VLC that include licensed multimedia codecs to third-party repositories, like Packman.
openSUSE has a big Wiki full of useful information. It has a step-by-step guide on adding the Packman repository to openSUSE 15.2 and then switching openSUSE to use Packman's applications here:
https://en.opensuse.org/Additional_package_repositories
This requires using the CLI, but if you can read and follow directions, it's not difficult. The result will be (or should be) working multimedia applications.
If you want newer applications than openSUSE provides in its base repository, it has repositories for updated versions of applications. Visit the URL above for more information.
I haven't upgraded from openSUSE 15.1 to 15.2 yet, but when you put the live media on a USB key it uses the free space on the key to store persistent data. It's interesting that they put out live KDE media that was only 910MB in size.
For package management, I prefer to use Yast's Software module. (Actually, after you've installed all the software you want, it's more of a software update tool. And they are always putting out updates.)
12 • Canonical= Buntu Google (by harry on 2020-07-13 06:12:07 GMT from United States)
I have now removed all Buntu from my system. The last updates being a buggy mess. Further to that the
move to Botnet snap packaging is not coming to my house. With that system of uncontrolled updates you can be served anything at wish from the makers.
Announcing and stating the close partnership between Google and Canonical, Linux developers get Flutter support for their operating system of choice again as a snap packet.
Yet again another reason for my choice, leave. Google belongs to Alphabet, as far as known a CIA financed surveillance project. Founded and controlled by USA. Subjected to Patriot Act. I have no trust whatsoever in that country anymore.
13 • OpenSUSE Leap - the professional's choice (by Microlinux on 2020-07-13 06:33:35 GMT from France)
I'm a Linux professional, and OpenSUSE Leap is my distribution of choice on my workstation and laptop, as well as all my clients' desktop machines.
If you think the installer is "weird", then try setting up software RAID 1 on a workstation. You'll figure out it's actually well thought, and all the other installers (Debian) make you jump through burning loops).
Your multimedia problems can all be solved using the Packman repository.
Here's my post-installation script for OpenSUSE. Current production version is still 15.1, but I'm busy working on 15.2:
https://gitlab.com/kikinovak/opensuse
My tech blog sports many articles about OpenSUSE Leap:
https://blog.microlinux.fr/poste-de-travail-linux-opensuse-leap-kde/
Cheers from the sunny South of France.
14 • Exploring alternatives (Snap packages) (by Usman on 2020-07-13 06:42:29 GMT from Indonesia)
Using Chromium snap for a while, here's what i learn :
- I don't see something wrong/look alien with the Cromium theme, even though i'm using KDE with third party theme (Materia dark from Papirus team).
- Initial download size bigger than deb, thats true. About 3x bigger than Chromium deb.
- Update download will be smaller because of delta. I don't know yet. I hope this is true.
- Startup time will be slower. Opening from my low end Netbook definitely not fast, but without Chromium deb to compare, there is no tell.
- Snap force update. Actually we can tweak (their documentation very clear). My snap will "force update" only if i don't refresh snap for 1 month.
- There is no mirror, snap packages only availbale from Canonical server. cmiiw.
- Snap : dependency still exist, some application need "core" package/s.
15 • OpenSUSE (by GreginNC on 2020-07-13 07:07:47 GMT from United States)
I wish I could say something good about OpenSUSE but in 15 years of running Linux I have only found 2 Distros that consistently failed me and OpenSUSE was one of them. I've installed it probably every other year and have never gotten past the third update without the system dying (many times on the first). I don't do anything unusual and have run just about every Distro that wasn't an Ubuntu and have only had anything similar with one Distro that doesn't even exist anymore. I guess that's why they invested in integrating with BTRFS as Snapshots would do a lot to mitigate the issues I've always faced with it. I do wish them well though.
16 • Use Packman Repository for codecs (by Charadon on 2020-07-13 07:32:17 GMT from United States)
I've been using OpenSUSE for years now, and i've never seen that guide before for installing codecs. The method i've always used to get codecs is this method from the OFFICIAL wiki https://en.opensuse.org/Additional_package_repositories#Packman never had issues using this method.
17 • OpenSUSE (by Gerald on 2020-07-13 08:38:21 GMT from Austria)
I used OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for a year and i really liked to have snapshots to fix the system if updates make the system unusable. But i discovered that the implementation has one mistake. If grub brakes during an update it is inpossible to access these snapshots. I didn't find a solution.
It would be really nice to access these snopshots not only with grub but also with a live system.
18 • OPensuse (by Archdevil on 2020-07-13 09:43:11 GMT from Netherlands)
I loved OpenSUSE from until Leap 15. Issues came up with my soundcard. Everytime it initiated a sound, it started popping and cracking. I asked on the forum and searched the interweb, to no avail. I tried Leap 15.1 again, with the same result. This made me so frustrated that I gave up on Suse. Have been using Solus for quite a while now. Like it, but I miss KDE Plasma. Solus has it, but it is not mature yet. Should I give Opensuse one final try?
19 • Font rendering opensuse (by Richard on 2020-07-13 10:55:31 GMT from United States)
I have tried opensuse over the years and recently installed kde Tumbleweed. I got everything I needed to work except for the fuzzy fonts. Opensuse font rendering is not as crisp and clear compared to Ubuntu and Manjaro. I had all 3 on my machine and returned to my current favorite Manjaro KDE.
20 • VirtualBox (by Jesse on 2020-07-13 11:52:27 GMT from Canada)
@3: "I notice you've been having problems with VBox. Last week it was Mint, this week it's OpenSuse. I'd venture that the problem is with VBox. While "vmsvga" is the default for Linux, it doesn't work most times."
I can report this is not the case. I wondered this too and tried each of the VirtualBox display driver options to make sure. The best behaviour were the results I reported above in the article. With alternatives either resolution would be fixed at a lower point or the display server would not work at all.
21 • openSUSE 15.2 Leap (by Tim on 2020-07-13 12:08:03 GMT from United States)
twm? Cool!
I use btrfs for everything on my two home systems. I have done this since 2014 or earlier, probably earlier.
22 • btrfs and qa (by fonz on 2020-07-13 13:45:55 GMT from Indonesia)
i do have to agree, opensuse is a nice distro, but with minor quirks. for an easier time playing with opensuse, id humbly recommend using geckolinux. its mainly opensuse, but with conveniences like shipped codecs and firmwares. back then i chose the rolling edition and btrfs saved me so many times. sure it takes a bit to get used to btrfs, but its a lifesaver.
alternatives to flats and snaps
wouldve been awesome if you also mentioned appimages. imho theyre the only truly portable packages. sure they may seem bloated since they include everything including the kitchen sink, but on most systems ive tried (my main is puppy btw) the major packages all work just fine.
another alternative is to find binary releases, or punch open packages from your repo and wrap them up. its been a bad habit of mine to just have the bare bone basics installed, and rely on portable stuff for everything else
23 • @8 Bias is showing (by Will Senn on 2020-07-13 14:01:50 GMT from United States)
Ha, I'm biased alright. I heart FreeBSD which has a tiny slice of the market share (huge corporations use it though). However, I'm not really biased when it comes to Linux market share. Yes I also heart Mint (which uses pkg and is based on Debian and Ubuntu), but really, my observation is based on reading the usual cornucopia of estimates and Debian derivatives are always the lion share of the Linux market (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, MX, etc)... to the tune of 2:1 generally over Redhat/OpenSuse and their cousins. If it were the other way around, I'd be fine with it and say something like, I just can't understand why it was so :).
24 • @3,@20 VirtualBox (by StephenC on 2020-07-13 15:08:51 GMT from United States)
You should upgrade to 6.1.10. Earlier versions of 6.1.x have problems with handling screen resolution and resizing because some one made the stupid mistake of assuming all guest machines to be running systemd. See https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/19496 and https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/19590.
25 • Opensuse (by Robert on 2020-07-13 15:34:56 GMT from United States)
Opensuse was one of my first distros, and I liked it a lot in the 12 and 13 versions. I've become disillusioned with it since the change to leap and tumbleweed. Too many bugs and other issues to use the distros, but I really respect their infrastructure projects like openqa and the obs.
26 • Filesystem etc (by Cheker on 2020-07-13 17:36:59 GMT from Portugal)
I've played around with OpenSUSE before in a VM, and I felt it looked professional.
I have regular, good old ext4. I don't feel like I need more. And that reminds me, is there any point whatsoever in using ext2/3 when 4 exists? Compatibility issues with older distros?
@17 Just throwing this idea out there, but wouldn't reinstalling grub from a live distro fix it?
27 • Gecko Linux for openSUSE font rendering & media codecs (by aphid on 2020-07-13 18:37:42 GMT from United States)
@19 Richard - and anyone else wanting nice fonts and working media for openSUSE - it's too bad the Gecko Linux project (https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gecko ) went dormant. I tried several of the Gecko DEs, both VM and IRL, and they all looked great. In fact, the Gecko LXQt version was the best early implementation I found. Multimedia codecs worked too. I used the Tumbleweed versions.
28 • Compiling Chromium Yourself - Difficulty level? (by vader takes solo's blaster on 2020-07-13 18:56:40 GMT from Finland)
Chromium Browser:
Since I don't want to use Ubuntu's snap, how difficult would it be to compile Chromium myself on Ubuntu?
29 • @28 (by Andy Prough on 2020-07-13 21:18:08 GMT from United States)
> Since I don't want to use Ubuntu's snap, how difficult would it be to compile Chromium myself on Ubuntu?
It is absolutely horrendous. Make sure you have lots and lots of time, patience, RAM, and disk space available if you try it, and even then builds often fail. Better to download a binary package of an actual supported browser that is chromium-based and will work with your chromium extensions, like Brave or Vivaldi or Opera or Ungoogled-chromium.
30 • File Systems (by ZFS for me on 2020-07-13 23:14:26 GMT from United States)
Have checked on the progress of Btrfs once in a while for ages but never actually deployed it on anything. It almost feels like a stalled project at this point due to redundancies with ZFS. I can't see it coming back barring a disaster ever since Red Hat dropped support. ZFS not only has all of its features but it's also much easier to manage snapshots and volumes with its dedicated utilities.
I still use ext4 and NTFS for my daily driver systems. I don't store anything of great importance on those machines so advanced file systems aren't really needed.
31 • Chromium (by Friar Tux on 2020-07-14 02:41:59 GMT from Canada)
I see a few folks here wanting Chromium browser but not as a snap. I got mine from pkgs.org as a *.deb, or as an appimage at ungoogled-software.github.io. Check it out and see if it'll work for you.
32 • 1 man show distro (by 1 man show distro on 2020-07-14 02:51:14 GMT from Singapore)
@27 This is the reason I avoid those "1 man show" distributions.
It can disappear anytime without notice and leaves you high and dry.
33 • @ 28 Chromium Browser (by OstroL on 2020-07-14 09:37:22 GMT from Poland)
You don't have to compile it yourself, as it is freely available at Chromium Org. https://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium
34 • @5 Dependency hell & marketshare (by Titus_Groan on 2020-07-13 04:16:03 GMT fro (by James on 2020-07-14 09:49:10 GMT from United States)
I experienced dependency hell once on Debian, because I decided to force a software install. I no longer do that. I have found if I wait a bit for software updates, I can eventually install what I wanted without those problems. I just learned to have patience.
35 • OpenSuse (by Otis on 2020-07-14 15:23:24 GMT from United States)
Suse.. this weeks review and comments are of interest to me because Suse was the first distro that got my wife's attention years ago (9.1). She remained on that with her pc (not a laptop) for three years, then things kept getting harder to fix. One day she asked me, "what's happening with this linux? I can't rely on it any more."
Well, poor Myrtle ended up just getting a new lapper with Windows XP then 10.. but has tossed Windows 10 in favor of Manjaro which is that boring old cliche of "just works." She is in full trust of Manjaro and when I bring up Suse she says "please!"
We both like to distro hop but we keep Manjaro on this and one other laptop now. Thing is, when I see reviews of openSuse I see the very same issues over the years (often along with posted fixes in the comments areas of the reviewer page). But, you know.. if the openSuse (and Tumbleweed) devs keep seeing the self-same issues, um.. why are they not addressing those things? Suse is quite the unique distro; nothing like it, nothing like Yast. But.....
36 • OpenSuSE (by Sam on 2020-07-14 16:40:52 GMT from United States)
SuSE used to be my go-to distribution when I first started using Linux in the early 2000s. I eventually got tired of driver issues and quirks with every version upgrade -- the 10.1-10.3 versions were *so* bad, they killed the distro for me. I've tried going back every now and then, but whenever I do I find driver issues or "dependency hell" that I haven't seen in a Linux distro in maybe ten years or more. No wonder that this one-time "Top 5" on Distrowatch distro has slipped to #15.
37 • OpenSuSE (by anonymous on 2020-07-14 23:40:00 GMT from United States)
I am very surprised to read that so many people are having issues with OpenSuSE. I recently installed it to test it out and I didn't run into any issues, whatsoever. The install went well, and everything downloaded and installed perfectly from the internet during the process. I booted into my new install, and everything worked fine. Audio, videos, internet, youtube - no issues. It ran so well that I thought that I was running vanilla Debian with KDE (I installed it on an old Dell Inspiron, if that helps). Reading all of these comments, it appears that I am in the extreme minority when it comes to my experience with OpenSuSE. I didn't stick with it, though. I prefer source-based, DIY-style distros. Still, I find it very surprising because I never ran into any of the issues that everybody pointed out in their comments.
38 • Btrfs ZFS (by AdamB on 2020-07-15 01:58:05 GMT from Australia)
I have used ext4 for everything for some years, but during the lockdown I have been upgrading some of my fleet of computers, and experimenting with advanced filesystems.
I have installed Devuan 10 on Btrfs on one desktop; it is working well. I have used Btrfs for storage volumes on several computers, including on a Raid-1 pair of disks.
I have installed GhostBSD on ZFS on another desktop; it is also mostly going well (I recovered from one update problem using a boot environment). I have installed a mirrored ZFS storage volume on a pair of large disks in a Devuan desktop.
I had a disastrous hard-disk failure a year or so ago, hence my interest in filesystems which have a high level of data integrity.
39 • Under-rated Appimages (by Woodstock69 on 2020-07-15 03:34:33 GMT from Australia)
It's sad that AppImages are ignored in reviews and in general. I'm running Kubuntu 14.04 and the lack of AppImages is frustrating sometimes, Flatpak and Snaps being the preferred delivery system. Why, I don't know. If not for AppImage I couldn't run Digikam or Gimp at the latest version.
I could upgrade to 20.04 or go Manjaro (very tempting, might be time to revisit openSUSE too), but I like the way my system is set up, and the myriad of utilities, repos or settings I'd have to re-install / configure is daunting and preventing me upgrading at the moment (any hints for a painless upgrade?).
40 • Under-rated Appimages (by Ulf Dellbrügge on 2020-07-15 07:43:48 GMT from Germany)
I agree. It is very unfortunate that they are ignored so much. When I was searching for a working kdenlive only the appimage worked flawless. I don't know about security though. As far as I know flatpak does a lot for security as i suppose snap does as well.
41 • @24, VBox resolution (by WhatMeWorry on 2020-07-15 09:16:00 GMT from United States)
Updating changes nothing, systemd use is irrelevant. I access my VMs from different systems including Windows. Some are running the latest VirtualBox. Matter of fact, today I installed 6.1.12 on a brand new system. Still the same resolution problems. Unlike Jesse's, mine run properly on "vboxsvga" although not with the default "vmsvga" setting. MX19, Devuan, Opensuse and Mint all exhibit the same behavior, so I would rule out the presence or absence of systemd as being responsible.
42 • @39 & 40 AppImages (by dragonmouth on 2020-07-15 11:56:44 GMT from United States)
Users and developers have the mistaken belief that newer = better. AppImages have been around longer than FlatPaks and Snaps therefore they MUST be inferior. There is a general tendency to declare that anything latest is always the greatest.
43 • AppImages, Flathub etc. (by barnabyh on 2020-07-15 16:19:26 GMT from United Kingdom)
I'm always intrigued about the attraction of these packages. From what I can tell from looking at Flathub and AppImageHub a lot of them are way out of date which I would have thought defeats the purpose, unless I'm missing something. Emacs for example seems to be on 25.1 on AppImages when even Debian stable has 26.1 in the repo.
44 • openSUSE rock solid (by FRC on 2020-07-15 16:21:41 GMT from Brazil)
I am not an expert, and had never seen openSUSE before install Leap 42.2 KDE in January 2017, in an old Intel 2 x Core2 with 4 GB RAM.
I have accepted BtrFS for root partition and ZFS for /home.
Upgraded to Leap 42.3, then to 15.0 and to 15.1, and finally to Tumbleweed, and openSUSE worked fine for 3 years, before to give up my old machine.
Used to enable just Packman Essentials, for Codecs.
Installed Tumbleweed in my new hardware January 2020.
Dualbooting some other distros, too, all this time, all of them in ext4 partitions.
45 • Flat, Snap, and App... (by Friar Tux on 2020-07-15 17:28:18 GMT from Canada)
@43 (barnabyh) For me, the attraction is that I can save them in a folder and simply bring them over to any new distro I'm trying or working with. Personally, I don't really care if the app is the latest version, so long as it does what I need it to do. Some of the apps I have on my system haven't been updated in four years, however, they still work fine for what I need them to do. By the same token, I have a shovel in my garage that is about 30 years old and still works beautifully. (I do have an axe that had the handle upgraded recently.) To me, the apps/programs on my machine are tools and if it ain't broke, there's no need to fix it.
46 • I use other less advanced filesystems (by mmphosis on 2020-07-15 17:52:05 GMT from Canada)
I am quite happy with EXT4 as my default advanced file system, but I also encounter other "less" advanced, legacy, retro filesystems ...
• FAT
• HFS
• NTFS
• WOZ, DOS33, ProDOS
• and Fuse to access some of these file systems.
47 • Flat, Snap and App (by Angel on 2020-07-16 09:46:58 GMT from Philippines)
@45 "save them in a folder and simply bring them over to any new distro" Only Appimages work like that. Or there's this: "a Linux binary, the way Mozilla does for Firefox and Thunderbird, and have people just download the archive and extract its contents" (per Jesse)
My take is that for the majority of users, Flatpaks and Snaps are solutions in search of a problem. I have tried Appimage, and would use it if more and useful apps were available. Unfortunately, there are few. I have Firefox, Chromium, and a couple of other things which I downloaded as binaries. With those I can move them to other distros, and so far have worked on all. To update, I download a new one and delete the old containing folder before replacing.
I'm sure Snaps and Flatpaks are of bernefit to developers and some users. but I'm still a fan of Apt, Pacman, and others. There's very little I can't find in Arch's AUR or Ubuntu/Debian and it's PPAs.
48 • Advanced Filesystems (by penguinx386 on 2020-07-16 11:35:38 GMT from United States)
I don't use advanced filesystems. BTRFS? No thanks. I'm sticking with ext4 because it's easier to troubleshoot if something goes wrong.
49 • yep, appimages need more love (by fonz on 2020-07-16 14:01:31 GMT from Indonesia)
as ive seen fewer and fewer apps available as appimages. while lots of apps (like firefox, and dwarffortress and co) offer universal archives for multiple distros, they sometimes wont work when your distro strays off from the norm. ive had better luck with appimages in general, i also dont mind being out of date.
im also against the newer = better, and hopefully peoplell wake up sooner or later. my main pc is still running win7, and i doubt itll get dropped for at least a few years. who needs security from wandows when many antivirus companies claim theyll support win7 for a few more years? games (the only reason i still use wandows) definitely wont drop win7. ive bought 2 laptops before 2020, and for some strange reason they both blocked win7 installers before the 'apocalypse', great head start for wandows 8+10 i guess. from the rumours alone wan11 is going to be worse -_-
*cough* systemd is also newer *cough*
50 • AppImages (by OstroL on 2020-07-16 14:36:57 GMT from Poland)
Anyone can create an AppImage. There's a cookbook for that, https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/wiki/Creating-AppImages/cc2441518975caca23e9ce2dba6f08a22c678d1e
You can carry AppImages in a usb stick, or keep them anywhere you like. You don't need any extra app installed, such as snapd or flatpak. Most times, the AppImage you created using Ubuntu would happily work on Arch, Fedora or in OpenSuse, staright from your usb stick.
51 • opensuse (by JO on 2020-07-16 16:05:30 GMT from Slovakia)
@37 you are not in minority, I run opensuse as my main distro, for couple of years, not having virtually any problems. Plus I read arch wiki when I need some tuning :)
Opensuse installer is the best out there, some other distro's installers are a joke in comparison (too simplified, buggy, no choices).
For installation you only need one iso to install whichever DE you choose, be it KDE, Gnome, XFCE, or others or none (server mode), there are no tens of useless spin-offs that just differ in DE. There are just two editions - "Leap" (traditional stable fixed opensuse release) and Tumbleweed (rolling-release version, like arch). Whichever you choose, you can install any DE with it.
For a large selection of 3rd-party packages check out https://software.opensuse.org/ , it searches through OBS (opensuse build service) which is like a ppa in ubuntu world. It even hosts packages for other distributions.
If you have problems with codecs installation, read a good manual or ask someone online for help. It is not such a big trouble to install them, though I can understand that for some people it might be. Other distros like Fedora also do not have any non-oss packages installed by default, so the situation is not unprecedented.
Having said that, opensuse is I guess better suited to at least intermediately skilled people, because of the amount of configuration options and not too much hand holding given. Do not expect to go to the forums asking people to solve your problems for you. Read the excellent documentation (or arch wiki :) and do it yourself.
Regarding packages, though I personally do not care about the whole deb vs rpm thing, I must point out that opensuse's zypper is blazing fast in installing rpms, much faster than apt is with deb (my personal feeling).
All in all opensuse is the best distro for a desktop or laptop computer. Especially the Leap variant - fair duration of support - 3 years, with yearly point release upgrade - with subsequent upgrade to next major release via the same process as if it was just another point upgrade, no hassle; the Yast configuration tool is very useful, it keeps your system under control for you (but you can uninstall individual yast modules to take control yourself). I think opensuse is one of the most underrated / unknown distros, a hidden gem. I am not in any way affiliated with suse or opensuse project, I am just a satisfied user, hoping to get some stickers one day :)
On another note, I feel that, generally, linux on the desktop is slowly falling behind and now with WSL2 coming to Win10, it might actually die for good. If you can help it, become a contributor for some project, maybe just maintain one package for whichever distro, if you can, though seeing it firsthand myself, the learning curve is very very steep (still cannot wrap my head around it).
52 • AppImages (by Woodstock69 on 2020-07-16 17:04:47 GMT from Australia)
@43. I hadn't seen AppImageHub before. Thanks.
@49. I also don't mind being a little behind in some areas, I'm using 14.04 after all, but sometimes a new feature comes up in my favorite app that warrants an update. AppImages for me fill that gap.
@50. A good link, I'll have to investigate. Might solve some issues for me. Thanks.
In general, as has been observed, AppImages are like the Portable Apps of Windows fame. Very portable, very convenient and no daemons to worry about.
53 • @50 app cooking (by Angel on 2020-07-17 00:48:07 GMT from Philippines)
Appimages are for those who want quick, effortless and portable. If you have to build your own, what's the point?
54 • @53 App Cooking (by Woodstock69 on 2020-07-17 05:39:41 GMT from Australia)
I can think of at least 2 reasons.
Giving back to the community - Someone has to create them in the first place so you can enjoy them.
and
As is my case - If I don't want to / cannot upgrade at the moment, I can create them in a VM of a higher versioned distro and import to my current distro.
I'm sure there are more cases.
55 • @54 app cooking (by Angel on 2020-07-17 06:34:30 GMT from Philippines)
I'm a Linux user, not a developer. If you want to "give back to the community", go right ahead. My interest, and I suspect most users, is to "enjoy" them. Otherwise there are simpler ways to accomplish things..
"I can create them in a VM of a higher versioned distro and import to my current distro." I believe you have that exactly backwards.
56 • @ 55 (by OstroL on 2020-07-17 08:49:43 GMT from Poland)
If you are a Linux user, the normal Linux user, you are like some tinkering. Otherwise, you are just like another Mac or Windows user, click-and-shoot guy. The person, who created/invented AppImages gives the rod, rather than the fish. So, you can have lovely time tinkering. He made the tool, and it is up to you to use it, that is, if you have the Linux mind set. :)
By the way, I still have the older AppImage cock book too. Quite old in the considering how fast Linux world is developing. They can still create AppImages from the newest packages, and they work. The newer cook book is even better. Simply create AppImages, put them in a USB stick. They are really portable apps, not like flatpaks or snaps.
57 • @56, tinkering (by Angel on 2020-07-17 09:19:19 GMT from Philippines)
I "tinker" plenty, but if it was all about tinkering, we'd all be running Arch, or Gentoo, or playing with LFS, and would have no desire or need for Appimages. The benefit to the user of self-contained binaries is that they can be dropped in and run on different systems immediatwely, and not that one gets to spend hours or days "creating and tinkering." If it took such time and effort to run apps on Linux, you're damn right I would be on Mac or Windows, along with probably everyone except die-hard Linux geeks.
58 • @56 OstroL: (by dragonmouth on 2020-07-17 12:37:02 GMT from United States)
It has been the obsession of Linux developers since Day 1 to make Linux as easy and as transparent to use as Windows. All distros are rated on how "Windows-like" they are and how easy they are to use for Windows refugees. Distros that are deemed not to be sufficiently "Windows-like" are criticized and declared "not ready for prime time".
As angel says, if "tinkering" was the goal then Arch, Gentoo and LFS would be the most used distros and Linux would be as wide-spread as ONX.
If you want to tinker, knock yourself out. Make sure you let us know when you start churning out AppImages.
59 • OpenSuse (by Otis on 2020-07-17 13:22:24 GMT from United States)
@51 @37: Of course there are some who find negatively talked about distros working fine on their machines (or who SAY that particular distro is workign fine on their machines). But the history of Suse is what it is; A pretty functional version, then an update and the functionality is shot. Then a point update or three later and it seems that it might work this time, then crash blah blah. And, again, it seems to be the same cluster of issues.
I admire their perceverance, but I sometimes think it could be a bit like the Ford Edsel, wherein too many opposing "engineers" got their way at the same time and produced a joke, luckily for only a few years in their case. But this Suse thing has been going on for a very long time, so it must have followers.
I'm not vilifying OpenSuse, I'm just pointing to its history. And of course those who like it or who are involved with it will flood in and talk it up. Good. That helps to keep it alive. Perhaps someday in the future it will be as perennially reliable as MX, Manjaro, Mint, etc.
60 • Tinkering and such (by Friar Tux on 2020-07-17 13:32:12 GMT from Canada)
@53 to 58... Both side have a good point - to my way of thinking. I love to tinker and could/would most likely 'return' my tinkering back to the community. However, I also need to get stuff done so someone else's tinkering (creating AppImages) definitely helps there. Plus the fact that I fine the AppImage format far more portable than either Flatpak or Snap ("One file = on app")
61 • common 'plaints (by Somewhat Reticent on 2020-07-17 17:52:38 GMT from United States)
@58 Microsoft didn't invent the GUI, nor did Apple (though they did 'standardize') …
@59 Is it any wonder people note businesses dependent on paid support tend to provide distributions that consistently stumble, or attempt a bit of vendor lock-in (e.g. Snap, Flatpak, etc)? FreeD Open-Source Software licensing & business model(s) still need work. The LibreOffice community is currently discussing this issue.
Consider the giant gorillas crowding into the room lately - even Microsoft "loves" Linux … and people still aren't happy …
62 • If you knew Suse and the Wright Bros. (by Angel on 2020-07-18 00:51:10 GMT from Philippines)
@59 -Manjaro and MX haven't been around long enough to earn the word "perennial". And MX, Mint and Manjaro get the benefit of a couple of two little obscure projects called Debian and Arch Linux. (Mint via Ubuntu.) I've tried OpenSuse over the years. I don't use it regularly, not because of stability problems, but because I like to set up my main systems a certain way, and OpenSuse requires too much "tinkering."
@61 -"Microsoft didn't invent the GUI, nor did Apple."
Boeing and Airbus didn't invent the airplane, but try booking travel on a Wright Brothers plane.
63 • GUI NIH (by Fairly Reticent on 2020-07-18 01:57:33 GMT from United States)
ee "Xerox PARC user interface ".
@62 This? https://www.kittyhawk.com/adventures/1902-wright-glider-experience/
64 • @63 -Xerox (by Angel on 2020-07-18 02:30:46 GMT from Philippines)
The Xerox story is common knowledge, and so is Gates' perfidy. It still remains that but for Jobs' and Gates' vision, today's GUI might have been as advanced as the Kittyhawk gliders, and just as useful for general use.
65 • I've been using SUSE since 1996 (by LongtermSUSEuser on 2020-07-18 09:16:00 GMT from United States)
I have been using SuSE from 1996 and openSUSE from the time that openSUSE was introduced in 2006. I tried Red Hat and Debian back in 1997 but I kept returning to SuSE even though you had to buy it for around $60 per version until openSUSE was introduced in 2006. Initially I used SuSE instead of Red Hat or Debian because the YaST setup tool made setting up modems, printers, scanners, networking, partitioning and many other facets of creating and maintaining a Linux installation easier than the other distros I tried. I also liked SuSE’s use of KDE because the user interface was similar in a number of ways to the “classic” Windows interface which made it much easier for Windows users to transition to using Linux. OpenSUSE seems to have fewer bugs than most of the other distros I’ve tried and installing software using YaST has worked quite well.
I have been the primary computer support person for dozens of family members, friends and friends of friends for decades. Almost all of them started out using Windows and for years and years I had to remove viri, worms, Trojans, and malware from their Windows and, not infrequently, had to do a low-level format of their hard drives, reinstall Windows from scratch, reinstall their apps, data (if they had done any backups), and reinstall antivirus and antimalware software. As SuSE got to be easier and easier to use and as Konqueror improved and mainstream web browsers and OpenOffice became available, it became more and more apparent that almost all of the people I was supporting could do everything they would normally do on a Windows PC just as well on a Linux PC but they wouldn’t have to worry about Windows viri, worms, Trojans, and malware. SuSE was also much, much more stable and faster than Windows and once openSUSE became available, it was free as well. I began to insist that if people wanted me to support their PCs, they would have to let me install openSUSE on their PCs in a dual boot mode.
Most people continued to use Windows because they had been told by people who had never touched a Linux PC, that Linux was too hard for ordinary users. But when their Windows installations inevitably got goobered up and they wanted me to drop everything and come right over because they couldn’t get their email and couldn’t get online, I would tell them that when they got to the GRUB boot screen and were given the choice of booting either Linux or Windows, to just boot Linux and they would still be able to get online, to get their email, to web browse, to use the word processing and spreadsheet software and to print things. With one friend, I wasn’t able to get over to take a look at his clobbered Windows installation for a week and when I arrived, he said, “You know, this Linux isn’t so hard to use after all, I think I could actually use it instead of Windows.”
Not long after that I decided that I wasn’t going to continue the hassles of supporting them on Windows. If they wanted my help, they would have to use Linux. If they wanted to keep using Windows, they could call the Geek Squad and pay $150 each time they needed help. In a short period, they had all decided to switch to openSUSE and many of them have since convinced their friends to switch to openSUSE. When the Mac-using brother of an openSUSE-using friend of mine learned that his brother had been using Linux for a number of years, he was surprised and said he thought you had to be a “Guru” to use Linux. That, in turn, surprised my friend who didn’t think Linux was hard to use.
Over the years I’ve tried quite a few of the major distros including various Ubuntu variants and other Debian derivations, Puppy Linux versions and Fedora versions and, of late, I’ve tried and been impressed with Barry Kauler’s EasyOS. But my daily PCs and the PCs of the many users I support are all running openSUSE. There have been some rough patches, but most of them were eight or ten years ago. I’ve had trouble with Nvidia video cards in years past but solved that problem by using AMD video whenever possible or Intel when I had the misfortune to have to use Intel-based Thinkpads (love Thinkpads, but much prefer AMD cpus to Intel). I’ve had very few problems in the past five or six years. Even upgrades from one openSUSE version to the next have gone smoothly for years. Certainly there are some hardware configurations, specially on some notebook PCs (looking at you, Dell!), that require some extra work, but AMD cpus, video, and motherboards seem to generally work quite well. There were BIOS teething problems with early AMD Ryzen motherboards and my one real annoyance was how long it took openSUSE to backport the updated amdgpu driver and kernel to support the embedded AMD IGP Vega video in the new AMD Ryzen APUs. I ended setting up a number of new PCs that used the AMD Ryzen APUs (wonderful cpus, fast, great video, and very reasonably priced with far fewer security holes than Intel’s cpus) with the SUSE rolling release, Tumbleweed, which is keep very up to date with kernel releases as well as amdgpu releases and all the other software being continuously updated.
I was a bit concerned at first that the Tumbleweed rolling release might be less stable than the openSUSE Leap stable releases but I’ve experienced very few problems and the ones that have come up have been fixed almost immediately. I wouldn’t recommend using Tumbleweed if you have a slow Internet connection or if you have download caps because the number of updates are frequent and numerous, however I’m very fortunate to be in an area served by Sonic Gigabit Fiber with no download limits so the downloads are fast even though they are large.
The new stable version of openSUSE Leap 15.2, which was released at the beginning of July, now has a recent kernel and amdgpu drivers to work with the AMD APUs and video cards, so I will transition my PCs and friends PCs which are running SUSE Tumbleweed to openSUSE Leap 15.2 which will reduce the frequency and size of the updates.
If you want professional tech support for Linux, you can buy the SLED version of SUSE Linux, the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (or Server) version which for an annual support fee which is much less than Windows support, you can get SUSE Enterprise support via email or phone up to 24 hours a day, 365 days a week, depending upon the level of support you’re willing to pay for.
But I think most people can manage fine with the help of the openSUSE Forums and some Google searches. By using codecs and uncrippled VLC, Kaffine, and other software from the packman.de software repositories, I can play all the various music codecs up to the high-definition codecs, as well as every form of video format that I’ve encountered.
In short, I would encourage people to give openSUSE a try. I think most people will be impressed.
66 • Suse (by Friar Tux on 2020-07-18 13:41:10 GMT from Canada)
@65 (LongtermSUSEuuser) This is my story exactly - except that I use Linux Mint/Cinnamon. I have tries OpenSUSE dozens of times, but YaST just will not play nice. Most of the time, when trying to install a needed bit of software using YaST, YaST just plain dies/quits. In fact, all the distros I've tried that use YaST seem to have the same issue. YaST dies on any attempt to install new software - every time. And since this one program I use is a must have, do everything, can't go without type of program, and since it doesn't come default on any distro, if I can't install it, I need to move on to a distro that will install it. (By the way, as a free plug for Giuseppe Penone, that program is Cherrytree.)
67 • @65: (by dragonmouth on 2020-07-18 13:49:36 GMT from United States)
It is a truism that we recommend and try to propagate what we know and what we are comfortable with. You know and love SUSE/openSUSE so you recommend it. Long time users of Arch recommend it and/or its derivatives. I've used Debian-based (not Ubuntu-based) distros and I tend to recommend them. There even are Gentoo users who claim that it is easy. Objectively speaking none of these users are wrong but neither are they right.
Bottom line is that there is no "best" distro, only what you like and what you know.
68 • VLC with all codecs on OpenSUSE (by Dxvid on 2020-07-18 13:50:07 GMT from Sweden)
I've found that this is the best place to get all codecs for VLC if you use OpenSUSE is to get it directly from the source:
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-suse.html
69 • OpenSuse (by Otis on 2020-07-19 13:42:41 GMT from United States)
@65 I encourage people to try openSuse, too. I also have used Suse since 1996; off and on with many other distros hopped to. Same as you, likely. ;)
I found it to be an off and on mess. Sorry. When it was off being a mess my hopes soared (for my wife who had it on her pc in the old days). But my hopes were dashed at the next update or sometimes even sooner. We tossed it for good (on her machines; I still try it now and then).
I am not a fanboi of any one distro, but can say that I recognize fine operating systems when I see and experience them, and openSuse is not in that category at all.
Number of Comments: 69
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FreedomBox
FreedomBox is a Debian-based distribution, primarily used as a server operating system for home users. FreedomBox supports point-and-click settings up a number of services ranging from a calendar or jabber server to a wiki or VPN through a web interface. Firewall, domain names, user accounts, backups, and Btrfs snapshots can also be managed through a simple web-based control centre.
Status: Active
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| TUXEDO |
TUXEDO Computers - Linux Hardware in a tailor made suite
Choose from a wide range of laptops and PCs in various sizes and shapes at TUXEDOComputers.com. Every machine comes pre-installed and ready-to-run with Linux. Full 24 months of warranty and lifetime support included!
Learn more about our full service package and all benefits from buying at TUXEDO.
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| Star Labs |
Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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