OpenSUSE 12.3 KDE - I like it
Hello KFN.
I was curious about OpenSUSE 12.3 and had to give it a spin. I can't remember if I have ever been 'swimming outside of the Debian stream' this is a whole new experience for me. Anyway here are some of my impressions.
First impression was before I even got the Live USB running, for some reason the usual *buntu way of using the create-USB-tool in Kubuntu couldn't load the SUSE .iso which was quite annoying since I didn't know that it wouldn't. A look at the OpenSUSE wiki said that I should install SUSE imagewriter, and kubuntu channel on G+ suggested unetbootin. Unfortunately both imagewriter and unetbootin had some sudo trouble to even start for me. Best way as on many other occasions was the CLI way, also suggested on the Kubuntu G+ community, a freshly formated USB stick and the command in the .iso directory
Note; As far as I understand, the OpenSUSE live disk/USB don't give you the option to save storage/data inbetween live sessions, which I find handy running *buntu live sessions on public (possibly hazardous) computers.
The live USB session was nice and nothing to complain about. Installation was head on and very much like Kubuntu. The only thing that made me hesitate was the partitioning with more options and where Kubuntu say "use existing partition table" was in the SUSE installer simply saying "Import", which I found confusing.
Once installed OpenSUSE and KDE 4.10 go hand in hand. I found it nicely integrated and the SUSE dark theme is out of the box a pleasant first impression. Many complain about the greyish stock KDE theme that meet the user in Kubuntu, maybe especially prior to the latest wallpaper. I don't see any reason to complain about the default SUSE/KDE theme. The default desktop options are 7 in total and on top of the usual picture, colour etc there's marble globe, picture of the day, animated wallpapers and mandelbrot.
I realized that the occasional graphical glitches and hick-ups I've learned to live with in Kubuntu wasn't in OpenSUSE, usually I have these when I'm to add a widget or rearranging panels. My favorite browser is installed by default and looks ok by default, but doesn't integrate as well as the extra firefox-KDE package available to Kubuntu users (possibly available in SUSE too, but with my lack of experience I haven't found it).
Default plasma-theme (marble desktop come by default) and moved default panel to top and added a task-icons panel at bottom. I like the sys-tray icons - monochrome and simplistic style.
I had some trouble to get the WiFi firmware running, after some search and questions it was as simple as jockey, although not as obvious, there is a hidden installer one have to run from command line.
One thing that I'd like to see more of in other KDE distributions is YaST like implimentation. Think of YaST as a Muon/Kinfocenter/Systemsettings all-in-one. Some are simply links to the usual KDE stuff, like Kinfo center or Apper (there's no muon as default), but there's also other features like system information, basicely a hwinfo with a GUI, YaST really give me a good impression, I haven't even tried half of all the resources there, so I can't really give a review of the inner workings. Either way YaST gather all the tools in one place.
YaST main menu and YaST Hardware information.
For those of us used to debian systems the 'apt' installer is called 'zypper', as easy to use and from my impression powerful and versitile tool for package management. I like the neat and tidy look of it. Apart from installing with zypper there's the GUI Apper as in Kubuntu and something what OpenSUSE calls one-click-install (something like getdeb) at software.opensuse.org and searching for clementine player http://software.opensuse.org/package...erm=clementine
zypper found my favorite burning mammal
Brief summary after 3 days of usage; OpenSUSE is a very polished KDE distro and the fact that they taken the effort with YaST and made their own addition to KDE it seems to me that they take KDE serious, rather then many other distros who have KDE as a second or third alternative to Gnome or it's derivatives. I couldn't really say if OpenSUSE KDE is a keeper for me in the long run, as I feel too .deb dependent at the moment and I'm way too fond of kubuntu-backports ppa. That said, with KDE being so snappy in OpenSUSE it makes me think that it's less resource demanding and setting up a Blender/Graphics workstation with a rock-solid-no-extras OpenSUSE is tempting. Next couple of weeks of evaluation on OpenSUSE on this laptop may give the answer.
b.r
Jonas
I was curious about OpenSUSE 12.3 and had to give it a spin. I can't remember if I have ever been 'swimming outside of the Debian stream' this is a whole new experience for me. Anyway here are some of my impressions.
First impression was before I even got the Live USB running, for some reason the usual *buntu way of using the create-USB-tool in Kubuntu couldn't load the SUSE .iso which was quite annoying since I didn't know that it wouldn't. A look at the OpenSUSE wiki said that I should install SUSE imagewriter, and kubuntu channel on G+ suggested unetbootin. Unfortunately both imagewriter and unetbootin had some sudo trouble to even start for me. Best way as on many other occasions was the CLI way, also suggested on the Kubuntu G+ community, a freshly formated USB stick and the command in the .iso directory
Code:
dd if=opensuse.iso of=/dev/sdb
The live USB session was nice and nothing to complain about. Installation was head on and very much like Kubuntu. The only thing that made me hesitate was the partitioning with more options and where Kubuntu say "use existing partition table" was in the SUSE installer simply saying "Import", which I found confusing.
Once installed OpenSUSE and KDE 4.10 go hand in hand. I found it nicely integrated and the SUSE dark theme is out of the box a pleasant first impression. Many complain about the greyish stock KDE theme that meet the user in Kubuntu, maybe especially prior to the latest wallpaper. I don't see any reason to complain about the default SUSE/KDE theme. The default desktop options are 7 in total and on top of the usual picture, colour etc there's marble globe, picture of the day, animated wallpapers and mandelbrot.
I realized that the occasional graphical glitches and hick-ups I've learned to live with in Kubuntu wasn't in OpenSUSE, usually I have these when I'm to add a widget or rearranging panels. My favorite browser is installed by default and looks ok by default, but doesn't integrate as well as the extra firefox-KDE package available to Kubuntu users (possibly available in SUSE too, but with my lack of experience I haven't found it).
Default plasma-theme (marble desktop come by default) and moved default panel to top and added a task-icons panel at bottom. I like the sys-tray icons - monochrome and simplistic style.
I had some trouble to get the WiFi firmware running, after some search and questions it was as simple as jockey, although not as obvious, there is a hidden installer one have to run from command line.
Code:
sudo /usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware
YaST main menu and YaST Hardware information.
For those of us used to debian systems the 'apt' installer is called 'zypper', as easy to use and from my impression powerful and versitile tool for package management. I like the neat and tidy look of it. Apart from installing with zypper there's the GUI Apper as in Kubuntu and something what OpenSUSE calls one-click-install (something like getdeb) at software.opensuse.org and searching for clementine player http://software.opensuse.org/package...erm=clementine
zypper found my favorite burning mammal
Brief summary after 3 days of usage; OpenSUSE is a very polished KDE distro and the fact that they taken the effort with YaST and made their own addition to KDE it seems to me that they take KDE serious, rather then many other distros who have KDE as a second or third alternative to Gnome or it's derivatives. I couldn't really say if OpenSUSE KDE is a keeper for me in the long run, as I feel too .deb dependent at the moment and I'm way too fond of kubuntu-backports ppa. That said, with KDE being so snappy in OpenSUSE it makes me think that it's less resource demanding and setting up a Blender/Graphics workstation with a rock-solid-no-extras OpenSUSE is tempting. Next couple of weeks of evaluation on OpenSUSE on this laptop may give the answer.
b.r
Jonas
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