Well, another Technological Review. This would have originally been about Ubuntu 8.10, before I realised that there was a new version of openSUSE available, which I could review without having to provide another computer for the installation of it.

Author's Note: This review is provided under the GNU Free Documentation Licence.

openSUSE 11.1 - A Technological Review

I'll have to admit it right off the bat - I like Linux. I find it a refreshing alternative to the Windows interface, which can often feel restrictive and cloying. I love the multiple desktops of an X Window Manager, which clean up the messy interface that results when many applications are open on a single desktop. I love the scalability of the operating system, being able to use it on any of my computers, from the dual-core gaming machine to the outdated Celeron that sits in my corner. I love the sheer volume of free applications which come with Linux, many competitive with commercial applications costing hundreds of dollars. Hell, I even love the command line, which occasionally proves that it can be quicker to type in a few commands than navigate through a graphical interface.

SUSE Linux and I have a lot of history. SuSE Linux 7.0 was the first version of Linux that I was able to successfully install, and I've used SUSE right through to its current incarnation, openSUSE 11.1. In that time, I've seen it evolve from an operating system which was no more than a curiosity to a non-computer scientist to something which could conceivably take on Microsoft in a number of areas. With that history in mind, I proceeded onwards through the five-hour network installation process.

openSUSE 11.1 is available in several different versions, including a DVD package, a LiveCD with both the GNOME and KDE window managers, installation CDs with the same window managers, and a network-install CD with the bare essential packages included. As well as that, there is a retail package available from the openSUSE website itself, costing $60 and including a set of printed documentation for the operating system. It's commendable for a community-driven distribution to still provide printed documentation, a service more often limited to professional server versions.

openSUSE 11.1 is an evolution over its predecessor, rather than any sort of revolution. The interface hasn't changed much, still retaining the same KDE window manager of its predecessors. A few of the programs have been updated accordingly, with the inclusion of OpenOffice.org 3.0, KDE 4.0 and all of the latest versions of the standard Linux software. However, there isn't much to separate this from its predecessor, unlike the revolutionary changes between the likes of Windows and Mac OS. This has always been part of the appeal of Linux; it is a very evolutionary operating system.

By saying that, I note that openSUSE 11.1 retains all of the traditional SUSE Linux characteristics. Chief among these is the OS installer, the most comprehensive and easy-to-use installer that I've ever used for an operating system. From the very beginning of the installation procedure to the end, openSUSE offers an almost-unrivalled amount of options and configuration settings, but at the same time, manages to keep the installer interface clean and easy to navigate. The SUSE installer has always felt professional and extremely well-designed, and this is a trait that has been improved since the acquisition of the distribution by Novell Corporation.

You cannot imagine how many times I've wished Windows had something like this.

This clean installer is combined with one of the largest libraries of available software in a Linux distribution, rivalling Debian and Ubuntu. With about 22,000 different packages available, the distribution includes much of the software required for many different purposes, including desktop work, software for several different types of server and a wide range of programming and development software. The desktop software will be most relevant to the majority of openSUSE users, and includes the most standard Linux software, such as OpenOffice.org, the GNU Image Manipulation Program and Mozilla Firefox.

Also among the list of included packages are the latest versions of the three most popular X Window System desktop environments, GNOME, KDE and Xfce, with provisions for many of the other window managers available. However, SUSE Linux has always subscribed to KDE as its prevalent desktop environment, and certainly looks more professional and elegant on KDE rather than any of the other window managers, with a distribution-specific layout which is missing from the GNOME or Xfce equivalents.

However, despite a slight lack of elegance when using the more popular GNOME desktop environment, openSUSE is still well laid out, whichever window manager you use. In the menus, almost every application is given a subtitle, outlining its use. This helps with clearing up a lot of the confusion created by Linux program naming conventions, which often include complicated anagrams, and will certainly be useful for the completely computer-illiterate or people initiated with Windows or Mac OS X. Indeed, by offering this feature for both KDE and GNOME, openSUSE improves usability over most other Linux distributions, and even over Windows, which provides very little to identify what a certain program is used for.

The KDE menu system is particularly clear, as seen from this screenshot of KDE 4.1. Still prefer the older KDE 3.5 myself, though.

When it comes to running programs itself, openSUSE 11.1 performs well. The sheer volume of programs available means that all of the basic computing scenarios, including office applications, the internet and image manipulation are all performed extremely competently. Media applications are abundant, with the full range of KDE and GNOME applications available alongside options such as VLC and Audacity. When it comes to the more traditional uses of Linux, such as programming and server usage, openSUSE provides just as well. The ease of use of many of the standard applications says as much about the increasing ease-of-use of Linux as it does about openSUSE, although the elegant layout of the distribution does help somewhat.

Unfortunately, there are a number of issues which maintain that openSUSE - or Linux, for that matter - is not set to sweep away the proprietary operating systems. These issues usually involve hardware compatibility, and while these are often more associated with Linux as a whole than any individual distribution, they are at best irritating and at worst crippling. Sound card compatibility is one of the most common issues for a Linux user, and there's no easy way to solve this. The ALSA project, which attempts to provide a standard Linux sound card driver package, only provides their driver and firmware software in source form, which means that their installation involves dropping to the command line.

I don't personally mind using the command line; in fact, I even enjoy it most of the time. However, using the command line isn't something which most people will like, especially with the UNIX-like tendency to truncate commands to a barely legible form, and source installation comes with a huge number of issues of its own, including, among other things, jargon-packed error messages and the high probability for the so-called "dependency hell", where a source installation fails because another package is missing, usually requiring source installation of its own.

Printing is another hellish experience for most Linux users, if they ever manage to get it working at all. Like the ALSA project for sound cards, the CUPS project attempts to provide a standard printing package for UNIX-based operating systems. I was lucky enough to have a well-supported Hewlett-Packard USB printer, which installed far more cleanly than the sound card (and strangely, even more cleanly than in Windows), but if you were unlucky to be relying on an old parallel-port printer or an obscure brand of printer, prepare for the same jargon-loaded mess which would happen with sound card installation.

What the hell? (Well, at least I've never been told that my build environment is insane.)

To its credit, though, openSUSE does do some hardware installation very cleanly. It interfaced very well with my Logitech joystick, and with Amarok, iPods and other music players are supported. openSUSE 11.1 is also the first version of the distribution which cleanly provides hardware 3D acceleration with my NVIDIA graphics card, although this requires a bit of configuration.

openSUSE 11.1 also provides a large variety of codecs for media playing, including Adobe's Flash Player, full support for playing DVDs and support for a large variety of music and video formats. While this won't please open-source advocates, as many of these codecs are provided under proprietary licences, it will prove useful for those for whom philosophies are less important than the ability to get their work done and to play their music and movie files. openSUSE isn't a particularly "pure" distribution, but there are plenty of distributions which do follow open-source licensing to the letter.

Using openSUSE 11.1 makes me think of how far Linux has come in the seven years that I've been using it. From the installers in Red Hat 4.0 which left me completely lost to the clean, modern installers of Ubuntu, Debian, Mandriva, Fedora and openSUSE, from an extremely limited amount of hardware support to plug-and-play support for increasingly large amounts of hardware, Linux has matured in ways almost unimaginable when it was first announced. Linux has displaced operating systems made by the world's biggest computer manufacturers to become the top server and supercomputer operating system in the world. At the same time, its amazing scalability and its open nature has found it reside inside of mobile phones, PDAs, routers and plenty of devices that were never even meant to support a full operating system. Linux has excelled at these tasks, and yet, as much as I would like it, it's not quite ready to displace any desktop operating systems.

openSUSE proves that the simple tasks of a person only using their computer as an internet hub and word processor can be accommodated at the same time as the complicated tasks of a computer programmer or scientific computer user - don't forget that openSUSE's professional sibling, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, resides on some of the most powerful computers in the world. However, it's that area in the middle which exposes the problems still lying at the heart of Linux, including incomplete hardware support and lack of professional-quality media editing programs.

While the incomplete hardware support could be solved by buying a pre-built Linux machine, that would only mask the fact that people with peculiar hardware layouts designed for Windows are not accommodated well by a current Linux distribution. As for the lack of professional-quality media editors, this isn't an issue which seems like it will be resolved soon; just as with games producers, the developers of these programs are wary of the open-source doctrines so important to the development of Linux. It is this wariness which will keep Adobe Photoshop and the like solely on Windows and Mac OS X for the foreseeable future.

As Linux distributions go, openSUSE is one of the closest to being a plausible competitor to Windows. The interface is nicely laid out, with a lot of attention to detail, while the included programs are frequently very useful. Hardware support is more complete than in most Linux distributions, and the included media codecs mean that users can immediately settle down to some music after installation - that is, if their sound card works. However, trying to use it as an everyday operating system would leave me missing my ability to play games, and anybody using Photoshop or another professional media program would be left wanting with the open-source alternatives. In other words, it's close, but it's no cigar.

Bottom Line: openSUSE 11.1 proves to be an excellent distribution of Linux, combining user friendly interfaces with a wide variety of programs. Hardware support is somewhat limited and frustrating to fix. The distribution does manage to prove useful for both simple and complicated tasks, but misses the middle ground.

Recommendation: Great if you're looking for pure Linux applications, but if you're looking for a distribution with the potential to replace Windows, you'd be better off either looking at Ubuntu or waiting until hardware and software support is less limited.

Very in-depth. And the pictures were great ways to break what would otherwise be walls of text after walls of text.

I have absolutely no experience with Linux, however (only a few months' worth with Ubuntu and Redhat 5.0 during my UNIX classes, which reminds me that I have to take POSIX scripting lessons when I get the chance) and I find your review fairly understandable, even for the uninitiated (like me).

I think the fear of breaking our only computer in the household is what's preventing me from experimenting with different OS's (unless it had a live CD)...

Syntax Error:
I think the fear of breaking our only computer in the household is what's preventing me from experimenting with different OS's (unless it had a live CD)...

You're in luck with openSUSE - both the GNOME and KDE window managers are well-supported on Live CDs. Same goes for Ubuntu, which has Live CDs for all three of its variants.

I'll give those Linux variants a try once I get around to finishing the rest of my papers or get around to getting a desktop of my own. Whichever comes first. I've already tried Ubuntu and it worked like a charm (live CD of course). We (as in me and my classmates) used it as a means to delete files in our thumb drives (computers are infested in the common net cafes near our school, presumably from other thumb drive infections) which would otherwise be unmovable/unerasable in Windows.

One of my classmates actually had it installed in his laptop (dual boot with XP). The last thing I remember about that endeavor is with him trying to install his videocard in Ubuntu. Dunno how that ended. And now, I sleep. It's already 2:44 am and I need to rest. Merry Christmas Eve.

Can you really provide your review under GNU if it's posted here? Doesn't that clash with the forum rules?

anti_strunt:
Can you really provide your review under GNU if it's posted here? Doesn't that clash with the forum rules?

As far as I could tell from the outlined Forum Guidelines, there was nothing to suggest that I couldn't provide my review under the FDL. As for the pictures, both of the pictures that came from other sources portrayed programs released under a free software licence, as did my one, and so AFAIK, they'd also be licensed under the GNU General Public Licence.

RAKtheUndead:

anti_strunt:
Can you really provide your review under GNU if it's posted here? Doesn't that clash with the forum rules?

As far as I could tell from the outlined Forum Guidelines, there was nothing to suggest that I couldn't provide my review under the FDL. As for the pictures, both of the pictures that came from other sources portrayed programs released under a free software licence, as did my one, and so AFAIK, they'd also be licensed under the GNU General Public Licence.

Well, some forums do this little "By signing up you agree to give over the rights of every single thing you'll ever post to the forum owners to do with as they please" dance number. I didn't really expect anything like that from the Escapist, but you can never be too sure.

nice read. personally i tried opensuse 10 but now have archlinux which is i find a bit more convenient :)

Tried OpenSUSE 11, fought to get the sound working, and eventually gave up.

I think I'll give openSUSE a go thanks to this. The last time I tried SUSE was 6.1 nearly a decade back, and the 6 CD's are still on my shelf; a reminder to actually learn what I'm doing before I do it. Having n00bed out of using Linux for nearly ten years, and sticking with XP, I hit a horrifying conclusion when my PC just.. well, casually died, and I was forced to boot from a Ubuntu liveCD for weeks as I waited for spare parts to arrive. However, I bloody loved Ubuntu, and I've been considering building a spare for Linux/Unix distributions so I can slowly learn more. This will be the first one to be installed. :)

Nordstrom:
Tried OpenSUSE 11, fought to get the sound working, and eventually gave up.

Same issue here, but perhaps I'll give it another try. I can't let groups of 1's and 0's defeat me!

mokes310:

Nordstrom:
Tried OpenSUSE 11, fought to get the sound working, and eventually gave up.

Same issue here, but perhaps I'll give it another try. I can't let groups of 1's and 0's defeat me!

hmm.... you guys have a few options still, try modprobing to see if your sound driver is being loaded, unless it is very ancient or something it will probably get loaded anyways.
try installing the alsa packages, its called alsa-utils on arch,dunno wat its called on opensuse. oh and see that the user u created is a member of the group audio. gpasswd [username] audio i think or u can try adding a new user by useradd -m -G [the groups you want, wheel audio video camera storage lp optical power are common options]
and then finally try running alsamixer or alsamixer-gui(might need to install this one) and then try, if all goes well and the gods of linux smile on you then your audio will work :D

My laptop is six months old. I did try alsa. I fought it for a few days and ran out of time to spend fixing it. I really wanted to get it working because openSUSE seems more comprehensive than Ubuntu. However, that's not much help if it doesn't work on my hardware.

In contrast, Ubuntu worked perfectly on the same laptop. The sound worked. It even goes to sleep and wakes up when I close and open the lid.

The easiest way to install Ubuntu from Windows is to use Wubi. You install it just as you would any other program in Windows. Windows remains intact and there's no scary partitioning. At startup, you get to choose whether you want to boot Ubuntu or Windows. When you're in in Ubuntu, it really is a fresh boot. Windows isn't running in the background.

http://wubi-installer.org/

If you don't like it, uninstall Wubi from Windows, just as you would uninstall any other program. I've used it on a couple machines and it worked great for me.

wahi:

mokes310:

Nordstrom:
Tried OpenSUSE 11, fought to get the sound working, and eventually gave up.

Same issue here, but perhaps I'll give it another try. I can't let groups of 1's and 0's defeat me!

hmm.... you guys have a few options still, try modprobing to see if your sound driver is being loaded, unless it is very ancient or something it will probably get loaded anyways.
try installing the alsa packages, its called alsa-utils on arch,dunno wat its called on opensuse. oh and see that the user u created is a member of the group audio. gpasswd [username] audio i think or u can try adding a new user by useradd -m -G [the groups you want, wheel audio video camera storage lp optical power are common options]
and then finally try running alsamixer or alsamixer-gui(might need to install this one) and then try, if all goes well and the gods of linux smile on you then your audio will work :D

I tried that myself, and failed, which was why I noted the installation via source, because I had to do one myself. I've had a lot of problems with sound in SUSE over the years, so that was a point of particular contention for myself. I managed to get it working, though - I learned the procedure for source installation after I realised that was the only way I was going to be able to get certain Linux packages to run. I know that installing my laptop's sound was slightly smoother in Debian, even though I did what was pretty much a DIY project on that, based on an article from Desktop Linux.

There are some very cool features of openSUSE which keep me with it, though. The clean installer means that I can get it up and running smoothly without much configuration, and the comprehensive partitioner has saved me several times when trying to reinstall Windows. In fact, I end up installing the latest openSUSE five or six times sometimes on a new computer just for the partitioner, because I have horrible luck with Windows. Being able to download the NVIDIA 3D drivers through package management is pretty nice, because I've had to install it through the shell script before.

There's another very nice feature which seems to have come into it recently. You know the way that when you put files on an iPod, you can't move them off the iPod to another storage device? When I plugged in my iPod to charge it on my desktop, openSUSE removed the layer of DRM keeping people from taking the files off it. DRM, be gone! I love open-source software so much.

RAKtheUndead:

I tried that myself, and failed, which was why I noted the installation via source, because I had to do one myself. I've had a lot of problems with sound in SUSE over the years, so that was a point of particular contention for myself. I managed to get it working, though - I learned the procedure for source installation after I realised that was the only way I was going to be able to get certain Linux packages to run. I know that installing my laptop's sound was slightly smoother in Debian, even though I did what was pretty much a DIY project on that, based on an article from Desktop Linux.

I appreciate that you made this issue clear in your review. I might wait a while and try openSUSE again some time.