 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 874, 13 July 2020 |
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Welcome to this year's 28th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The openSUSE project recently published a new version of the distribution's Leap branch. The new 15.2 version introduces a number of new data analysis packages, installer improvements, and software upgrades. We begin this week with an overview of how openSUSE works and some of its key features. One of openSUSE's special features is running the operating system on Btrfs by default, which allows for regular filesystem snapshots to be created automatically. We would like to hear whether you make use of Btrfs, or another advanced filesystem, in our Opinion Poll. In our News section we discuss CentOS Stream getting optional real-time packages while Canonical publishes instructions for using Google's Flutter toolkit on Linux distributions. The Linux Mint team has provided instructions for upgrading to Linux Mint 20 and we link to those below. Then we tackle some of the pros and cons to various portable packaging approaches in our Questions and Answers column. Plus we are pleased to share last week's releases and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: openSUSE 15.2 Leap
- News: CentOS to receive real-time packages, Ubuntu introduces Flutter toolkit, Mint provides upgrade guide
- Questions and answers: Exploring alternatives to Flatpak and Snap packages
- Released last week: SparkyLinux 5.12, Clonezilla Live 2.6.7-28, NomadBSD 1.3.2
- Torrent corner: ArcoLinux, Clonezilla, Endless OS, GParted, KDE neon, Neptune, Obarun, Robolinux, SparkyLinux
- Opinion poll: Installing a distro on Btrfs
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (17MB) and MP3 (12MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE 15.2 Leap
openSUSE is a general purpose, Linux-based operating system which shares code with SUSE Linux Enterprise. The project provides two main branches: Leap, which is a fixed release distribution, and a rolling branch called Tumbleweed. The project recently published version 15.2 of the Leap branch which introduces a number of new features and package updates. Selecting whether to install CPU attack migrations is now an installer option and detecting Windows partitions during the initial setup now works better. The project has also introduced a number of new container management and data analysis tools. The distribution currently provides 18 months of support for each version, with new point releases generally coming out about once per year. Popular desktop environments have been updated with KDE Plasma 5.18, GNOME 3.34, and Xfce 4.14 available.
There are a number of ways to download openSUSE 15.2. The distribution is available as a 4GB install disc for 64-bit (x86_64) computers or as a 138MB net-install disc. There are also live desktop editions for GNOME, KDE Plasma, and a minimal rescue flavour. These live discs can be downloaded for x86_64 and aarch64 computers. There are some secondary ports to other architectures too, available as full install and net-install discs. I decided to download the Plasma live edition to make testing easier and found it was 910MB in size.
The openSUSE website lists hardware requirements for the distribution, which I suspect are actually higher than necessary. Users are told they need to have a dual-core 2GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 40GB of disk space. Though my testing showed that the distribution can get by with fewer resources if need be.
Live disc
Booting from the live media brings up a menu asking if we would like to start the live desktop environment, perform a media check, or try to boot an existing operating system from the hard drive. Taking the live desktop option loads the KDE Plasma desktop. Icons on the desktop can launch the system installer, start an upgrade process from a previous version of openSUSE, and open the file manager. A panel placed along the bottom of the screen houses the application menu on the left and the system tray on the right.
There was no welcome window, documentation, or other introduction items on the desktop. Everything seemed to be running smoothly and so I soon launched the openSUSE system installer.
Installing
openSUSE uses a graphical installer. The installer began by downloading information from some servers and, though it was not explicitly stated, it appears as though this information is likely package repository data. We are then shown the project's license and given the opportunity to change the default language and keyboard layout using drop-down lists.
The following screen asks if we would like to activate on-line repositories, presumably to check for the latest possible versions of packages and optional add-ons. We can then select which repositories we want to use. Most of these are the project's main repositories and updates, but there are also some extra repositories containing source code and debugging information. Our next step is to pick a role for our operating system with options including Desktop (with KDE Plasma), Desktop (with GNOME), a minimal generic desktop, Server, and Transactional Server. The last option is essentially the same as the Server role, but with the root filesystem set to be read-only with atomic package updates.
When it comes to disk partitioning we can take a guided option, which suggests using Btrfs and a swap partition. The manual partitioning option is very flexible, but also unusually complex by Linux standards. There are all sorts of options for network (NFS) and Btrfs volumes, most of which we probably will not need.
The installer then asks us to pick our time zone from a map of the world and create username and password for ourselves. We are then shown a list of settings and changes the installer will make and we can click links next to each configuration option to adjust it. For instance, we can change where the boot loader is installed, tweak security options, and enable/disable CPU attack migrations. Once we confirm all the settings look right the installer copies its files to the hard drive and then exits, returning us to the live desktop.
Early impressions
When I rebooted from the live media, after finishing the installation, there was no prompt to remove the media and so I ended up booting with it still in. This would not seem a problem at first as the media's boot menu offers to launch an operating system from the local hard disk. Sadly, this option did not work for me and trying it caused the system to simply lock up. I had to remove the live media and boot directly from the hard drive to start my new copy of openSUSE.
openSUSE boots to a graphical login screen where we can sign into one of several session options. The available session are: TWM, IceWM, Plasma, Plasma (Wayland), and Plasma (Full Wayland). TWM and IceWM are very minimal window managers, though they work. IceWM in particular strikes a good balance between minimalism and functionality and may be helpful if Plasma stops working. The plain Plasma session (Plasma on X.Org) worked as expected and I encountered no problems with it. The two Plasma on Wayland sessions both worked and I did not notice any differences between the Wayland and Full Wayland options. However, there were two problems with the Wayland sessions which kept me from using them regularly. The first was that the mouse pointer in Wayland did not always seem to appear where it was performing actions. In other words, sometimes clicking on one area of the screen seemed to trigger an event elsewhere. My other issue was that, in VirtualBox, it was not possible to resize the Wayland desktop session and resolution was limited to 800x600 pixels. This was not a problem when running on physical hardware where Wayland used my display's full resolution.
openSUSE 15.2 -- The KDE System Settings panel
(full image size: 141kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The Plasma desktop, in whichever form I was using it, tended to be quiet. There are few icons on the desktop, not much in the way of notifications, and there is no welcome window. The one exception to this was a warning notification which appeared one of the first times I logged in which indicated the root filesystem was "not responding". Despite this ominous warning, I did not run into any issues when accessing the filesystem.
Hardware
When I started playing with openSUSE it was in a VirtualBox environment. Both desktop performance and boot times were about average in the virtual environment. At first I had trouble resizing the Plasma desktop, even from within the settings panel, but once I had changed the VirtualBox display driver from its default I could resize the desktop from the System Settings panel. Otherwise the experience in VirtualBox was good.
When I shifted over to trying openSUSE on my laptop, the operating system detected all of my hardware properly. Desktop performance was quite good and the system was always pleasantly responsive.
openSUSE, when running KDE Plasma, did not require many resources. The system consumed a mere 400MB of RAM when signed into the desktop. The system used about 6.2GB of disk space for a fresh install.
Applications
The default application menu contains one panel with a series of tabs across the bottom. The tabs switch our view between favourite applications, all application categories, "Computer" (which is mostly folder locations, History (of folders we have opened), and logout options. Personally, this menu layout feels cumbersome to me as it takes more mouse movement and clicks to find what I want. Fortunately, we can quickly switch to alternative menu styles by right-clicking on the application menu's button. Two other menu styles include a classic tree-style menu and a full screen menu with three panels.
Whatever its layout, the application menu contains a lot of useful, open source software. I found the Firefox browser, LibreOffice, the VLC media player, and KDE Connect available. I also got to try out KMail, the Konversation IRC client, the TigerVNC Viewer, Okular document viewer, and Dolphin file manager.
openSUSE 15.2 -- Running Firefox and exploring the KDE documentation
(full image size: 146kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
For adjusting the look and behaviour of the desktop we have access to the KDE System Settings panel. When we get lost the KDE Help Centre is installed for us. There are also a few small games and the Kleopatra security key software.
Behind the scenes openSUSE ships with the GNU command line utilities, Java, and systemd provides init functionality. Version 5.3.10 of the Linux kernel keeps things running smoothly in the background.
openSUSE ships with some media codecs, for instance it played my audio files (including MP3s) without any problems. However, I was unable to play video files due to missing codecs. At first I tried to fix this by going into the YaST package manager and choosing the option to add a community repository. Unfortunately only one community repository, for updates, was found. The popular Packman repository with codecs was not listed. My next step was to try openSUSE's famous "one-click" codec install. There is a page in an openSUSE community wiki which offers a button we can click to set up the appropriate repositories and install codecs in 15.2. This had mixed results.
openSUSE 15.2 -- Trying to install media codecs
(full image size: 240kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Despite the install method being called "one-click", the process actually involves clicking the download button, selecting to open the package, confirm changes the package will make to the system, confirm we want to continue, enter the root password, choose to trust the repository certificates (twice). It turns out to be a seven-click process. Then the install ran into an endless loop of package conflicts because I also had similar packages with the missing codecs on my system. After trying various solutions through the automated installer I finally gave up. I then manually removed my old copies of the media players, including VLC, and installed fresh copies from the add-on repositories. While these new versions included the necessary codecs, trying to play video files in VLC caused the player to immediately crash. In the end, while playing audio files worked, I never got video files to play properly.
YaST
One of the key features which sets openSUSE apart from other distributions is the YaST administration centre. YaST provides a settings panel which gives us easy access to configuration modules that can be used to tweak almost every aspect of the operating system. YaST's many tools handle everything from firewall management, to software updates, to setting up printers, to network file shares, to sudo access. These tools are generally fairly friendly and work well.
I made some observations while exploring YaST. For example, the firewall tool, which appears to be a front-end to FirewallD, works fairly well. It's more streamlined than some other firewall tools I have used lately with FirewallD, but less streamlined than Gufw.
openSUSE 15.2 -- The YaST administration panel
(full image size: 342kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
The services manager confused me a little at first because clicking the Start button to launch background services would cause the display to be updated with a message saying the service was running. However, the service would not actually launch until I had later hit the Apply button in the service manager. This makes it look like network services are running before they actually become available.
Perhaps my favourite tool in openSUSE is the filesystem snapshot manager. Whenever we make a change to openSUSE through YaST the system takes a Btrfs snapshot (assuming we used Btrfs as the root filesystem). We can then browse through existing snapshots, see file-by-file differences between snapshots and restore one or more files from past snapshots. This makes it wonderfully easy to revert changes or fix broken package updates.
openSUSE 15.2 -- Browsing Btrfs snapshots
(full image size: 390kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Software management
openSUSE has an update icon which lives in the system tray and we can click on this icon to open an applet that will let us know security updates are available. The only issue with this approach is the icon is buried inside a menu with other notification icons and, even knowing where to look for it, I found it blended in with the other service icons. This means new software fixes can easily be overlooked. The update applet works well though, telling us how many new packages are available to be downloaded and applying updates cleanly.
The default software centre, at least on the KDE edition of openSUSE, is Discover. This application begins with a list of featured or popular desktop software. We can then browse applications and add-ons based on their category. I like how the categories in Discover roughly line up with the software categories in the application menu. Items in Discover are listed with their name, a brief description, and an icon. We can click a button next to an item's entry to install or remove it.
openSUSE 15.2 -- The discover software manager
(full image size: 496kB, resolution: 1366x768 pixels)
Discover sorts software based on a user-supplied rating, which can seem like a random order. I am happy to report that we can easily change the sort order to list software by its name, size, or release date. Personally, I found looking for items by their name to be the easiest approach.
Discover worked fairly quickly and I did not encounter any problems while using it. My only complaint with Discover was that I had to input my password every time I wanted to install or remove a program. This can get tedious after the ninth or tenth installation.
I feel it worth mentioning YaST has its own package manager which takes a more low-level approach. The YaST package manager offers a lot of options, searches, and filters. It is probably overkill for most users, but for people who need to finely manage or search through low-level packages it offers a lot of flexibility.
Finally, people who prefer working from the command line can make use of Zypper to manage RPM packages and Flatpak to work with portable packages from repositories like Flathub. Zypper is, in my opinion, one of the cleaner, faster RPM front-ends and though I did not use it much, the few times I tried it Zypper worked well.
Conclusions
In my opinion openSUSE is a distribution which does a lot of things right. The project offers a lot of download options, covering a range of CPU architectures and desktop environments without its download options becoming overwhelming. The project's documentation is usually easy to find and read.
The project has an unusual style and its installer, menu layouts, and YaST administration panel are all a little alien when coming from other Linux distributions. This is not to say that openSUSE does things in a way that is better or worse, but it does have a distinct style that can take a little adjustment.
I think the project has a great set of configuration modules and YaST is a gem of a tool. I especially like that it integrates with Btrfs to automatically take snapshots whenever we make a configuration change in case we need to undo an action. This makes openSUSE virtually bullet-proof. In fact, openSUSE appears to be one of the only Linux distributions making use of Btrfs and its powerful features like snapshots and multi-disk volumes.
The distribution has just two drawbacks as far as I can see. Its multimedia support is lacking and the documented ways to fix this, through one-click or third-party repositories did not work. Maybe this will get sorted out later, after 15.2 has been out for a while, but the days immediately after launch, multimedia issues were unresolved and caused all sorts of package conflicts. My other issue was with the sometimes limited or outdated packages in the repositories. openSUSE is missing a number of tools or has out of date versions of some software I use. Maybe this is less of an issue with openSUSE Tumbleweed, but in the Leap branch openSUSE feels like it is slightly behind in available software and/or versions of some tools.
All in all, I like openSUSE. I think the distribution is charmingly different in some ways. It offers a lot of powerful tools. I wouldn't recommend openSUSE to beginners, but Linux users who want a lot of power and point-n-click tools to make system administration easy will find a lot of good features in openSUSE. I especially enjoy the way Btrfs snapshots allow me to experiment without worrying about what I might break.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a de-branded HP laptop with the following
specifications:
- Processor: Intel i3 2.5GHz CPU
- Display: Intel integrated video
- Storage: Western Digital 700GB hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Wired network device: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast
- Wireless network device: Realtek RTL8188EE Wireless network card
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Visitor supplied rating
openSUSE has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.7/10 from 448 review(s).
Have you used openSUSE? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
CentOS to receive real-time packages, Ubuntu introduces Flutter toolkit, Mint provides upgrade guide
The CentOS project published their monthly newsletter this week which outlines software updates, details of CentOS's latest release, and new packages coming into CentOS Stream from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. One of the new features coming to CentOS is the availability of real-time packages. "One major addition to CentOS Stream is the RealTime (RT) repository. This is a set of packages that is developed alongside Red Hat Enterprise Linux, focused on latency-sensitive workloads. Because these packages are developed so closely with a given RHEL release, it makes perfect sense to include these packages in and gather feedback from CentOS Stream. The packages in the RealTime repository represent what's coming in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Real Time addon for RHEL 8.3." Details on the new Red Hat real-time packages can be found in the company's documentation.
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Canonical has announced that Google's Flutter development toolkit is being ported to Linux and is now available as a Snap on Ubuntu. Flutter is intended to make portable applications in the Dart language. Canonical's announcement explains how Flutter development works and how to both start working on Flutter applications and deploy them as Snap packages. "With this alpha release and the close partnership between Google and Canonical, Linux developers get Flutter support for their operating system of choice. Install the Flutter SDK via snap. Build and test your desktop app on Linux using Visual Studio Code or Android Studio. Deploy your app to the Snap Store."
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The Linux Mint team have published instructions explaining how to upgrade Linux Mint 19.3 installations to Linux Mint 20. The guide walks the user through checking their computer's architecture, performing a backup, and updating the operating system. People who are running 32-bit versions of Linux Mint do not have an upgrade path, however they can continue to use Linux Mint 19 which is supported through to 2023.
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Exploring alternatives to Flatpak and Snap packages
Why-not-go-simple asks: I know I'm probably missing something, but with the drawbacks and resistance to things such as Snaps and Flatpaks, why not just use pre-compiled archives that one can just extract and move to the directory of one's choice and run from there without installing? I have Firefox and Chromium like that and they seem to run well on different distros. Adding a launcher to the menu has to be done manually, but I'm sure some smart kid can find an automated way to do it.
DistroWatch answers: There are technical advantages and disadvantages to every approach to package management. For example, Flatpak and Snap packages require their own, additional package manager and tend to be incredibly large downloads compared to traditional Linux packages. They also have generally had trouble integrating with the local desktop environment, making portable packages look alien to their users.
So what about having upstream developers provide a Linux binary, the way Mozilla does for Firefox and Thunderbird, and have people just download the archive and extract its contents? This approach does have some benefits. It provides one, common binary so everyone is using the same software and there aren't distribution-specific differences. It also allows users to install software in their home directories without needing access to the rest of the filesystem. Plus it avoids the integration problems of Snap and Flatpak. However, this approach has a lot of its own problems.
One is that 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. Or, if we are proposing a new package manager be created to handle these upstream binary bundles, then the user will need to learn how to use a second package manager, which is not ideal and one of the issues people have with Flatpak and Snap.
Downloading software from third-parties also means we are relying on the developers to develop for the lowest common denominator in GNU/Linux, which means supporting older and less efficient libraries. Or we need to accept that the developers may target newer libraries and leave long-term support distributions such as Debian, Slackware Linux, and CentOS behind. If you have ever tried to install Chrome or Steam on older versions of CentOS you have probably run into how frustrating it can be when application developers are targeting newer software platforms exclusively. This is one of the main issues portable packages like Flatpak fix as they can run on platforms that don't ship compatible libraries.
Another issue with relying on upstream binary packages is most projects typically take a rolling release approach, where software is constantly updated to include new features and fixes. This is fine if you prefer a rolling release scenario, but it is a deal breaker for people who depend on software staying with the same version and features for years at a time while providing only bug fixes.
One of the perks mentioned in the original question was the option of installing a package under the user's home directory, bypassing the package manager and the need for administrator access. However, some Linux systems are set up with a security option to block running software in the /home directory to prevent users from installing their own applications. It's a bit of a corner case, but one which would conflict with the idea of users downloading their own software from the source.
A few weeks ago I presented a number of reasons why distributions may want to supply their own packages rather than simply redistributing binary archives from upstream. It highlights some benefits to repackaging upstream source code rather than relying on pre-built binary archives.
At any rate, while using pre-built applications can be useful for some people in some situations, relying on these packages presents problems in a lot of corner cases - situations which require fixed versions, systems with no-execute security on the /home directory, very old or cutting-edge distributions that break compatibility with the developers' systems, and working out how to manage many desktop packages without over-burdening the user. Most of these issues are solved by either traditional Linux package managers or portable formats like Snap and Flatpak, which is why they've become more popular than relying on upstream binary packages directly.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Clonezilla Live 2.6.7-28
Clonezilla Live is a Debian-based live CD containing Clonezilla, a partition and disk cloning software. The project's latest release, Clonezilla Live 2.6.7-28, introduces a number of new package updates. The exfat-fuse modules has been removed since support for exFAT is now available in the kernel. "The underlying GNU/Linux operating system was upgraded. This release is based on the Debian Sid repository (as of 2020/Jun/30). Linux kernel was updated to 5.7.6-1. ocs-iso, ocs-live-dev: sync syslinux-related files when copying syslinux exec files. When creating recovery ISO/ZIP file, if it's in Clonezilla live environment, we have those syslinux files. Use that first so the version mismatch can be avoided. Move grub-header.cfg from bootx64.efi to grub.cfg so that it's more flexible. To avoid conflict with the patch of GRUB in CentOS/Fedora, for GRUB EFI NB MAC/IP config style, the netboot file is now like grub.cfg-drbl-00:50:56:01:01:01 and grub.cfg-drbl-192.168.177.2 not grub.cfg-01-* anymore. Add xen-tools.Partclone was updated to 0.3.14. The codes about xfs was updated to be 4.20.0. Package exfat-fuse was removed since the kernel has module for that." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
NomadBSD 1.3.2
NomadBSD is a 64-bit live system for USB flash drives, based on FreeBSD. The project's latest release updates the operating system to be up to date with FreeBSD 12.1 and fixes the filesystem layout to allow tools like bectl to snapshot the boot environment. " We are pleased to present the release of NomadBSD 1.3.2. Changes since 1.3.1: the base system has been upgraded to FreeBSD 12.1-p6; rtsx-kmod, which is a driver for Realtek card readers, has been added; the ZFS layout used for installing NomadBSD on a hard disk has been changed to allow beactl to back up the boot environment; load_iichid has been added - it is a rc-script which offers the user, via a dialog(1) menu, to load the experimental iichid driver from sysutils/iichid if it finds a I2C HID; graphics/intel-backlight has been added; a curses menu has been added - it allows user to acknowledge licenses of certain wireless drivers in order to use them; a unionfs_maxfiles rc.conf variable has been added - it controls how many files can be opened on the Unionfs file system; graphics/mirage has been replaced by graphics/viewnior; a patch from 12-STABLE has been added to the acpi_video module - i sends devd events whenever the brightness is changed...." Further details can be found in the project's release announcement.
SparkyLinux 5.12
SparkyLinux, a Debian-based distribution with multiple desktop editions, has published a new release based on Debian's Stable branch. The new version, SparkyLinux 5.12, updates the kernel and several desktop packages. The Otter web browser has been removed in favour of Epiphany. "Changes between 5.11 and 5.12: System upgraded from Debian Stable repos as of July 5, 2020. Linux kernel 4.19.118. Firefox 68.10.0esr. Thunderbird 68.9.0. VLC 3.0.11. LibreOffice 6.1.5. Otter Browser replaced by Epiphany Browser (MinimalGUI). Added Openbox Noir to the desktop list to be installed as a choice (via MinimalGUI and MinimalCLI and APTus). 'debi-tool' replaced by 'gdebi'. Disabled package list updating during installing Sparky via Calamares; even you install Sparky with active Internet connection, the Debian or Sparky server can be temporary off, so it could stop the installation." Further information and upgrade instructions for existing users can be found in the project's release announcement.
Neptune 6.5
Neptune is a Linux distribution for desktops. It is based on Debian's Stable branch, except for a newer kernel, some drivers and newer versions of popular applications. The project has published an update to its current version, Neptune 6. The new 6.5 release offers security updates, a newer kernel, and and updated systemd package. Some other desktop packages have been brought up to date too: "It is the first maintenance release of Neptune 6 which is also available as update for all Neptune 6 users. This version features more modern hardware support by providing Linux kernel 5.6 together with updates to proprietary firmware blobs as well as updated systemd 245.6. Neptune is now bootable on UEFI Secure Boot machines. With the newly activated buster-backports repositories you can enjoy newer software updates for LibreOffice in version 6.4.5 and Inkscape in version 1.0. Updated are also the browser Chromium to version 83 and Thunderbird to version 68.10. When it comes to multimedia VLC got an update to version 3.0.11, FFmpeg to version 4.1.4 and PulseAudio to version 13." Further details and screenshots can be found in the distribution's release announcement.
Neptune 6.5 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 1.3MB, resolution: 1920x1200 pixels)
Slackel 7.3 "Openbox"
Slackel is a Linux distribution and live CD based on Slackware Linux and Salix OS. The project's latest release is Slaxel 7.3 "Openbox" which brings the distribution up to date with Slackware's development branch. "What is new: slim login manager is used as default. Gdm exists also but it is not used because of font rendering problems. Slackel Live Installer (SLI) now can do a real installation to an external USB stick or USB SSD or USB hard disk, creating the necessary initrd for booting. For this, just create an msdos partition table on /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc and a Linux ext4 partition on /dev/sdb1 or on /dev/sdc1 where /dev/sdb is your first USB device, /dev/sdc the second USB plug in device. Sign the /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdc1 bootable. Create also a Linux swap partition to /dev/sdb2 or /dev/sdc2, with size 2GB or 4GB according the memory you have. Do not create a EFI partition. If you boot using a Slackel live Openbox DVD then your external USB device will be recognized as /dev/sdb. If you boot using a slackel live openbox USB then the second USB you will use for real installation it will be recognized as /dev/sdc." Additional information can be found in the project's release announcement.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,064
- Total data uploaded: 32.6TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Installing a distro on Btrfs
openSUSE was the focus of this week's review where it was pointed out the distribution is one of the few to use Btrfs as the default filesystem. While most Linux distributions can be installed on Btrfs, most do not use the filesystem by default. We would like to know if you use Btrfs or perhaps another advanced filesystem such as ZFS or HAMMER.
You can see the results of our previous poll on home directory encryption in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Installing a distro on Btrfs
| I use Btrfs as the root filesystem: | 263 (16%) |
| I use Btrfs as a secondary filesystem: | 67 (4%) |
| I use another advanced filesystem: | 198 (12%) |
| I do not use any advanced filesystems: | 1077 (67%) |
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| Website News (by Jesse Smith) |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 20 July 2020. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
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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