I have quite nice feelings about OpenSuSE in general, because it was one of the first Linuxes I have tried and wrote about in my blog. And it was second from the list of non-pocket Linuxes, after Mandriva. That time, back in October 2010, I managed to kill Green Gecko when running it from Live USB. Because of this long acquitaince between me and Green Gecko, news about next version of it were long awaited by me.
And here it comes!
Open SuSE 11.4 was released on the 10th of March 2011!
Should I try it? Sure!
This time I again chose GNOME version of OpenSuSE. Disk image (iso) is downloaded. There is short manual on the web site how to make bootable Live USB from iso. I followed the guide and did dd_rescue. So, USB drive is ready. Reboot! Choose to boot from USB... Let's go!
Did I enjoyed my long awaited Tux immediately after that?
Unfortunately, no.
Instead, there were 4 disappointments which I faced with. But let me describe them one-by-one.
1. Live USB does not work.
Yes! Simple as that! Live USB created with guidance from OpenSuSE site does not work! I think this is because CD image contains file syslinux.cfg, while USB image should have isolinux.cfg. It is not possible to simply rename the file, because USB drive is mounted read-only after dd-rescue.
Is there any workaround for this? Of course there is! Very simple one: iso image can be burnt to CD-RW.
So, next attempt was done with CD-RW.
And here are had...
2. Extremely long boot time.
It is not only during boot. But actually any operation, which requires some files to be read from CD, takes very long time. I understand that any CD operation takes much more time than HDD or USB ones. But I have never seen such an extremely long waiting time!During boot Green Gecko only asked me one question: what I want to do. There were options to go for Live boot (which I obviosly went for), installation, media check etc... Usual set of options. What was a nice surprise again, that OpenSuSE is available in few dozens of languages "out of the box", including Russian. You can choose language and keyboard layout via F2 key at boot menu. There were no other questions, other than boot mode.
Finally, my Green Gecko is facing me! It is slow, but working. Let's get it for a walk! I mean, let's try to connect to network...
And here I had...
3. Green Gecko 11.4 does not have drivers for my WiFi card included.
Yes, it identifies by Broadcom 4311 and I can see it in lspci or YaST. But drivers are not here... Because they are not free. OK, I am ready to install them from external source rpm, like it was recommended at dmesg output. Though, this is not possible. Link in dmesg is not working, because it refers to old version of OpenSuSE wiki, and project is currently migrating to newer version. That's fine, I can understand that. Old version is available via simple link, and after some research I got to the page which offers me links to rpm files for my WiFi card. But... there are only links! Files are not there! Such a disappointment!Did OpenSuSE find network card on me another laptop - Toshiba L500? The answer is no. WiFi card was not found there at all.
Here I stopped my attempts to take Green Gecko for a walk.
Let's have a look at distributive itself.
It includes quite big choice of software... and, what is most interesting from my point of view, it includes Libre Office! As far as I know, OpenSuSE 11.4 is the first Linux distributive which has Libre Office included as standard! Sure, it will not be the only for long! Ubuntu 11.04 will be released in a month or so, and it will have Libre Office included too.
What else can be found in OpenSuSE 11.4? Few games. Several multimedia applications, nicely chosen to cover most needs: music playback, video playback, sound recording, disk burning... Set of Novell-specific configuration applications. Nothing outstanding, I should admit. But everything cherry-picked with German pedantry. Yes, OpenSuSE has German roots, so you should expect pedantry in it.
As I mentioned above, OpenSuSE is available in several languages. But does it support multi-language work? Here I had...
4. No alternative keyboard layouts.
It was not possible to define alternative keyboard layout using standard graphical tool. Yes, there is a tool which allows to switch keyboard layout. But it only allows to select one layout at a time. No switching with key combination. Moreover, even permanent switch did not work for me! I tried to switch layout to Russian, but it did not work... I still continued to type in Latin.If you have previously read my first post about OpenSuSE, you may notice that there is not much difference between that and this posts. Why? Maybe because issues remained the same? Where there any changes in OpenSuSE since last release? Yes, surely there were changes. Some of them are noticeable (OpenOffice.org is replaced with Libre Office), some are not. But these changes made no difference to me, since my main problems are still not resolved
If you wish to get your own CD with OpenSuSE, you can order one from the Buy Linux CDs page.
Update: Do you want to read more? Please look at review of OpenSuSE 11.4 KDE.
I'll add a couple more: default font rendering does not look good. I changed rendering 'hinting', but Firefox does not follow it (same was true in 11.3).
ReplyDeleteOn Gnome LiveCD, desktop effects are enabled by default, which made the desktop look like awful mess. Luckily, I know layout of main menu (used in SuSE), and (almost blindly) navigated to Control Panel and disabled "Desktop Effects". With the effects enabled, the desktop is useless (Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop).
I don't have much to say about (3) and (4), but for (1) I would highly recommend MultiSystem which supports openSUSE and creates nondestructive multiboot live USB setups, and consequently (2) is no longer an issue.
ReplyDeleteCheers!
--
a Linux Mint user since 2009 May 1
Personally, points 2,3 and 4 are 3 major showstoppers a distro could have whenever I try one.
ReplyDeleteRegarding point 2: Well, usually OpenSuse is a great distro, they didn't get it right this time, maybe next version, just not 11.4. It seems we're at those times when some distros seems to get buggy or messy releases, just as it tends to happen with Fedora from time to time, but eventually things will be tuned up. Now, if you want to think in OpenSuse 11.4 Live CD as a Cheetah for its speed, try out Vector Linux (at least until version 6)...that's torture as an art form, tough Vector is a great great distro once installed, specially at old hardware. The last great Live CDs I tried were Crunchbang's and Slitaz's, those are two sexy fast booting beasts, sure they don't use Gnome, but for Gnome Live CDs my heart goes out for Linux Mint Debian edition, in that field they're the best at least for me. But I'm more an Openbox kind of person and of course that's absolutely a subjective point of view.
Regarding point 3: Issues with wireless nowadays just look so primitive that I can't believe we're experiencing them. 5 or 10 years ago the problem was with winmodems, well, modems in general and printers. Hardware support is the field where Linux developers, vendors, investors, users and all of us, ought to be fighting, not our current stupid Interface-DEs-Distro wars. In lots of ways computing today is about connectivity, if we don't get it right we're out of the game, plain and simple. Meanwhile, we can keep on fighting for any sort of idealistic freedom concepts about what evil may lurk behind every piece of code and we can do it from a puffy cloud playing and harp dressing white robes, or envision a way to setting up and deploy effectively some real communication and marketing strategies, so we can keep a closer bond to hardware vendors and at least open a chance to maybe keep drivers coming for our devices or at least give developers a chance to write code around them. Sometimes those so-called FSF partners are just paper partners, and a paper partner only worths its weight on paper. FSF and Linux in general need active and proactive partners and there must be real actions to backup the name of a company that may want to call themselves friends of the open source community and free software culture or active members of the FSF.
ReplyDeleteI think it wouldn't have to be a "get a badge" club, it must be a "gain your badge" one. If I'm not wrong, not long ago, Broadcom enlisted on the club, right? Well Broadcom, earn a badge. Or OpenSuse team: don't be lazy and take the code that Broadcom may have released for Linux systems.
Regarding point 4: Well, that's just a lame failure. Stop the press, America is not the world, Germany is not the world, France is not the world, and there are multiple languages across the globe, russian, spanish, turkish, serbian... (insert your native or preferred language here) ad nauseam ad infinitum. Keyboard layout issues in 21st century? hmm. Something must be wrong. But hey, developer friends, humility is a great thing, maybe if some of you could communicate with some others collegues that already solved the problem of setting out keyboard layouts and check for a similar solution inside your code, or perhaps... ahh what I'm talking about of. Those times of excluding everyone including your user base from the most basic discussion seems to be back again, when dust settles down as well as the cult of personality around some Linux landscape "rockstar" figurines and the "hypersensitivity" surrounding every word said or written around Linux as a discussion topic, we'll see who remains healthy and strong. It has happened many times before in our beloved Linux distro ecosystem. But OpenSuse is not the new distro in town for it to have keyboard layout issues. Linux is so beautiful that it hurts to see it looking so primitive at the light of contemporary needs. Slowly, very very slowly, the MS monoculture times are receding one step at the time, and after 25 years or so, is a little bit disappointing to think that due to foolish petty issues Linux is still not there not matter how much some of us love it.
ReplyDeleteAh, I remember back in time, before it was needed to add the "Open" particle to Suse's name - maybe around version 7 or 8 - before Novell a big bussiness company with money to not have keyboard layout issues enter into Suse's name, it was possible to insert Suse's CDs or DVD and have installed at one time more than one desktop enviroment with no major thinkering around the OS with the risk of breaking it. Even more, one could choose before OS installation each and every single app that one desired to be installed on the hard drive. Now that once simple process, that for me, was part of the freedom surrounding Linux, has been relegated to a niche and being better achieved on the "so-called" expert user distros. Sometimes one has to wonder if regression is part of some evolution processes, or plain and simply we let the systems to get "dumbed down" loosing those little big things that now, some people ten years later, wish that were part of the new Linux systems breed.
ReplyDeleteAs a note: I'm afraid OpenSuse 11.4 is not the first Linux distro to establish LibreOffice as their standard office suite. The first one to take that step was Pardus Linux (a Turkish distro coded from scratch with an excellent KDE implementation, though once again I'm a little bit of a desktop agnostic) that around a month or two months ago, launched their 2011 desktop edition. How about that for irony my dear german friends... a turkish distro.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your article DarkDuck, is great to know what possible issues one could be finding. Sorry if my comment is too long, but I'm old fashioned and still can't find a way to be synthetically brief on these micro-messaging times, moreover when I find some writting I like. Best regards and keep up your good work.
Who is using openSUSE anyway? It is a dinosaur of the past. Slow, bloated, over complicated, like all RPM distros...
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous1: I have Compaq C300 and did not experienced any options with desktop effects. Although, it was a torture to see these waiving windows while moving them after spending few minutes to get the window itself... (issue 2) I'd better cut the waiting time.
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous2: everyone has right of choice. I know people who use (Open?)SuSE for serious production servers.
@PV: Never heard of this tool. I used Pendrivelinux couple of times in the past... But since I have Linux, I prefer Linux-native dd command.
ReplyDelete@Errans. Thanks for so lengthy comments! I absolutely agree with your points about network and keyboard. Though, I do not have much experience with Linux to compare 11.3 with versions 7 or 8...
ReplyDeleteReference the keyboard problem, is this Gnome specific ? With KDE my wife switches back and forth between English, German and Thai.
ReplyDeleteReference the boot time, what is this relative to. My experience for liveCD boot times is Ubuntu has some reasonable boot times, but Fedora makes openSUSE look fast. But once openSUSE is installed there is a tool that can be installed to help tune the boot time. Did you attempt that ?
Reference the broadcom wireless issue, IMHO this is an issue that goes beyond openSUSE and is Linux wide.
Reference 11.4 booting from the liveCDs, one of the biggest hiccups we are seeing is a bug in either the kernel or udev, which crept in between RC1 and RC2 (and is still in GM) of 11.4 where the default boot freezes for many Radeon HD hardware PCs. Those PCs need the boot code 'nomodeset' to work IF they are supported by the radeonhd driver. If they are not supported by the radeonhd then they need to boot into Safe settings/FailSafe. These aspects are causing far more interaction than what you note above.
you had Luke , i had to remove my wlan module in order to install the system !!!
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous. I don't know if this is GNOME-specific. I did not try SuSE with KDE. But I have GNOME on my HDD-installed Ubuntu and Debian. No issues there.
ReplyDeleteBoot time relates to what I have with other distros. I have "Racecourse scoreboard" - look at the top of the page. I did not put OpenSuSE 11.4 there, because it would scare everyone.
Broadcom cards are common issue, I know that. But since I found my 4311 working out-of-the box on SLAX, Puppy, Fluppy, Ubuntu 10.11 and derivatives, I can expect other distros to make their turn.
I do not have Radeon HD, I think. So, not sure if last your paragraph is relevant. I think I have Intel video card. I use different laptop at this moment, so I cannot check exactly which one. But definitely not ATI Radeon.
@ Anonymous. I ran LiveCD, no installation. And I cannot remove my WiFi module... it is in laptop. I can probably switch it off from BIOS, but I did not need.
ReplyDelete@DarkDuck: MultiSystem does work natively on Linux - it's built for Linux. For all that, I don't even know if it's available for non-Linux systems. In any case, I use it all the time in Linux Mint.
ReplyDelete--
a Linux Mint user since 2009 May 1
@ DarkDuck I don't use "Racecourse scoreboard" but if that link at the top of the page is any indication then 'racecourse' is very poor (compared to bootchart) for tuning the boot in a Linux distribution. One can significantly improve the openSUSE boot time by using bootchart and picking non-critical processes that can be not run.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete@PV Oh, I see now... It is the similar to pendrivelinux, but for deb-based distros. Will try it next time! Thanks for advice!
ReplyDelete@Anonimous. How can I improve boot time in Live distro? It always starts up everything what is in default options.
ReplyDeleteThen, tuning up one distro will mean inconsistency in my scoreboard, since all the results there are for "out of the box" systems, mostly Live modes.
@DarkDuck: Well, I don't know if it is built to run on DEB-based distributions specifically, but I do know that it can make a live USB out of pretty much any distribution under the sun.
ReplyDelete--
a Linux Mint user since 2009 May 1
OpenSuSE 11.4 totally wiped/destroyed my 580GB ntfs partition full of backups. Strangely, when selecting to just reformat pre-existed previous linux(mint10 x64) partion, once rebooting in Windows7( dual OSes, /dev/sdb1: 580GB, sdb2 : ext4 111GB, SDB5: linux swap ).
ReplyDelete-- in oss install: Going to custom partion edition, I've only choosed to format /dev/sdb2 as ext4 and mount to "/".
Guess what, once in Windows 7 (because btw, I told installer to put GRUB in /dev/sdb with no MBR because it doesn't recommand MBR if other oses installed), so when in Windows7, I've realized that I 've lost my "D:" drive. -> Go to computer/manage, then Disks management and WTF I saw was 111GB ext4 partition now in part0 ( it was the ntfs 580 GB before) and then swap partition then last the 580GB ntfs partition -- and -- indeed unusable because partitions was moved without warnings or telling what was going on. What did they smoke ??? WHY RE-ARRANGE PARTITIONS WHERE NO ORDERS to do so happened ???
I had two virtual linux machines with serious code and backups in it.!!!!
Sorry but I am so used to do linux installations (ubuntu; fedora; arch linux - all installed on that partition and NO incident happened. I've been made convinced to try OSS11.4 because of apparently fluid KDE 4.6.0 ...
OpenSuSE is dead for me
openSUSE and distro likie kanotix, Mandriva, Pardus is using hybrid iso. U can imagerwiter or mandriva seed. unetbootin will not work.
ReplyDeleteopenSUSE 11.4 KDE live USB work. After install and disable unwanted servive, reboot, stuck at whatever so i click reset button.
I have used openSUSE 11.2/11.3 so i understand how openSUSE installer partition work. A little headace at first.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI find what you write a bit inaccurate:
Point 1: The live USB works properly. I installed with it, and many did the same. Did you verify the medium after burning the image on the pendrive? The installer can do that.
Point 2: The long boot time of the live CD does not have anything to do with the long boot time of the distribution, which actually boots very fast. The boot time of a live image is not that important for the final user.
Point 3: Your wireless card is supported by Broadcom STA drivers, which cannot be distributed with the openSUSE due to their license, but are available in the packman repository.
Point 4: You can switch with the proper applet in the desktop environment.
HI,
ReplyDeleteYES ALTERNATIVE KEYBOARD LAYOUT
Configure Desktop - Input Devices - Keyboard - Layout
From Layout Indicator check Shouw Layout Indicator and Shou flag
Check Configure Layout and add second language or change first and add second
From menu Advance - Click from Key(s) to change layout and mark ALT+SHift
and all is OK
ope Suse Linux is the best Linux distributions for home and office use
My email is:
kostadinov@mail.org
and sorry for my bad english.
I tried Open SUSE 11.2 GNOME last year and couldn't even install it. So last week i gave a try for SUSE 11.4 KDE and everything went fine. There is however one odd thing on low bar - the network icon (red square with white cross) telling "no network interface". Never, ever has this kinda experience with Mandriva KDE or Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint or PCLinux.
ReplyDeleteHello there,
ReplyDeleteI installed it successfully via LiveUSB.
I used dd command to copy the iso to the USB disk.
I used the KDE version.
@ Anonymous1:
ReplyDeleteI am happy I have not even tried to install OpenSuSE onto my machine.
@Anonymous2:
I tried to veryfy my USB stick which I created with dd. It failed with same error as during Live boot. CD-RW verification gave me message "md5sum ok", but value is different from what I see on the web site http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/iso/openSUSE-11.4-GNOME-LiveCD-i686.iso?mirrorlist . Not sure what it means. Image was taken from http://www.mirrorservice.org.
As long as I try to run Live versions for my reviews, boot time is important for me. As I wrote, SuSE was slow in every operation when CD was involved, not for boot only. Even starting Terminal took significant time.
I know issues about my WiFi card. Though, some distros have it working OOtB. I appreciate it is not free software. But point is: when I tried to install driver for it from YaST, it went through like everything is OK. Fulfilled full cycle of configuration activities without any message on the screen. And only dmesg told me that driver was not actually available. Then, dmesg link was not working. Trying to find driver in the Internet (from another computer), I found a link to the file, but no file itself behind the link. You see, I made every possible step to make my WiFi card working. But seems like there is no driver for it available. At least, via ways prescribed by system itself.
I managed to get layout switch! See below.
@Anonymous3:
Thanks for the clue! Not exactly the place you named, but it works!
Control Centre - Hardware - Keyboard - Layouts - Add...
@Anonymous4:
Again, that may be a problem of GNOME version itself.
@lnux:
ReplyDeleteThanks for info!
But again... I used the method described officially, and it did not work.
@Matias:
ReplyDeleteAgain, I had GNOME version, not KDE.
Probably that was wrong decision from the very beginning. 8-)
Am I the only person who tried GNOME version at all?
Coming back to md5 sums. Just checked my downloaded image: md5 sum is OK. But md5 for CD is different. That can be a reason for slow booting: CD-RW disk is wore significantly. That may lead to slow booting. But not necessarily.
ReplyDeleteBut it still does not explain why USB is not booting at all.
Both the gnome and KDE bootable CD's are slow pigs. It sure looks like feature-creep has taken over (and they don't care about burning-bridges with older hardware). So screw the little-guy that doesn't have the bandwitch to download the DVD. I'll wait for it to come out with some magazine to see if its also too bloated for any of my machines...
ReplyDelete@Anonymous. If you want, I can download and burn DVD for you... Use "Buy Linux CDs" page and mention that you want DVD in comments or send me an e-mail after making a payment with reminder about DVD.
ReplyDeleteWhy install Gnome when KDE is the default ? If you really want a Gnome, use Ubuntu, Mint or other Gnome distro. But if you really want a good KDE distro use Opensuse, PCLinuxOS or other KDE distro, but not Kubuntu nor Mint KDE.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteI am NOT installing system. I am trying it in Live mode, unless it is impossible.
This time selection was almost random. Maybe because GNOME is higher in the list of available options.
Then, KDE is SuSE's default only since 11.4.
Hi, i had tested de gnome CD and kDE CD, there was a little diferents, gnome too slow, KDE more fast but realy slow, i maked a live USB it is posible there a tool I thet do it really easy, but I was waiting more from OpenSuse.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteThanks! You're just confirming my points. Glad to hear that I am not alone in my disappointments.
You say that OpenSuse will be a distribution to include Libreoffice by default, but ArchLinux was one of the first to include it in the repo's and now Gentoo does, yet OpenSuse still doesn't have it.
ReplyDeleteSounds like more fluff from Novell.
Glad to see it being integrated in more distros though.
@Dann
ReplyDeleteI see Libre Office in my Live CD. Why do you say OpenSuSE does not include it?
Live usb works for me, I just used the live kde iso. I dd'd it to my flash drive and it works. I have encountered the wifi issue as well, extremely annoying.
ReplyDelete@ringmaster
ReplyDeleteSee my reply to Matias above. I think choice of GNOME was failure point this time.
I don't know why you want to do a live USB when you can just do a full installation directly onto the external USB drive. Works fabulously - openSUSE on a usb 2.0 external drive is very fast, even with a full KDE 4.6 desktop. Looks gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteI am not the distro-hopping kind. OpenSUSE is my favorite, and since 11.0 I have really had no problems with this distro, but 11.4 appeared to be instable on my PC. So I am evaluating Fedora 14 and so far it is all positive. I am not even sure that I want to try 11.5
ReplyDelete@Andy Prough:
ReplyDeletein order to install onto external USB, I need to run OpenSuSE somehow. One of the options is to make Live USB. Or burn CD image.
Another point is that I am reviewing distros in this blog, and try not to install them as long as Live mode works. I only have 4 OS installed on my laptop: http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2011/03/darkduck-in-quadro-boot.html
@Anonymous: Fedora is great OS. If I ever wanted to replace (K)Ubuntu on my laptop with anything else, than most likely it would be Fedora. You can read my review of Fedora 14 here: http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2010/12/does-net-mean-inter-or-not.html
ReplyDeleteI couldn't test Opensuse 11.4 , because of the live usb problem . but I think the best kde distro in 2011 is Pardus linux , this is my first time to use it on my Sony vaio eb, and I had no problem with Pardus , the Installer the themes and the icons are gorgeous , the one issue that I noticed is that my laptop's fan is turning a little bit faster in comparison with ubuntu , but it doesn't bother me .
ReplyDelete@Azzeddine
ReplyDeleteI wrote about Pardus as well. Have a look:
http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/2011/03/7-surprises-from-turkey.html
OpenSUSE 11.4 rules! I'm sorry, but since I upgraded my previous openSUSE 11.3 I had no issue at all! I'm really satisfied with its look and functionality!
ReplyDeletewell install from usb does work.install suse studio imagewriter. simply link up your iso and click write. my opensuse 11.4 install boots up in 8 seconds perhaps you just have a slow computer. broadcom wireless rarely comes preinstalled on any operating system. only card specific works out of the box. easy to find and install driver on any os also.and keyboard layout are currently winp
ReplyDeletebtw find legit problems to talk about such improving video support and improving flash player/plugin support. shouldnt 64 bit be native by now. or the lame kpackagekit. dont we need an updater that install patches and important updates automatically. one that finds dependant rpms for you or searches google for missing program. maybe even a feature that provides a simple kde upgrade
ReplyDeleteand yes i agree opensuse 11,4 rules until sled 12 arises
ReplyDelete@Anonymous1:
ReplyDeleteI am happy it works for you!
@Anonymous2:
ReplyDeleteImageWriter is available either from OpenSuSE or Windows. Neither option is OK for me.
My computer is 4.5 years old, and yes it is not the fastest.
Broadcom has open firmware for ages (google for it). Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva... do I need to give you more distros which have driver included OOTB?
I am happy that keyboard layouts are WIP. But OpenSuSE is not 1 year old. It is very mature system. I was very surprised by this miss.
@Anonymous3:
ReplyDeleteI don't understand what you're talking about. This is review of 32-bit GNOME version. It has nothing to do with either 64-bit, or video issues or KDE.
@Anonymous4:
ReplyDeleteGreat! Happy that is works for you.
oh it seems a line from one of my post is missing.new chapter :)...but yea talking about kde is that gnome and kde somewhat uses different programs and with kpackagekit and gnome's update manager could both can use improvements. so you should have had that as a dissappointment. that there is not 1 program other than yast that works on gnome and kde and updates both with little error.example think how yast works.it's apart of suse not kde or gnome.as for the 64 bit chatter. it was about how adobe support on suse is just horrorable.32 bit or 64 bit.i know it's mostly adobes fault but other distros seem more compatible.good news on keyboard layout setting is that it should be ready for 12.1. next version will ship gnome 3 :) yea... but for the broadcom driver. not enough cards are open making it still hit or miss for out of the box support.but this might be a good tip for you dont know already.best way to me is add packman repo and open yast software manager.search broadcom and driver will be listed.i was wondering which distro were you trying to make suse usb disk from?
ReplyDeleteUNetbootin is a great app perhap give that a try
ReplyDelete@Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteArrgh, how difficult is to read it without Capital letters at the start of sentences and without paragraphs...
I don't remember which distro I used. It could be any of Debian 6 or Ubuntu/Kubuntu 10.10.
@Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteThere are many tools to create Live USB stick. But I was talking about method described on official page. That method does not work.
ye my fault. I broke my glasses and appointment to repair is still another day away. I can't even see the letters on keyboard. but yea i just realized most programs like that havent suppoeted suse since 11.1.
ReplyDelete#1...Wrong I installed from USB. You can also do a network install from FTP setup which is extremely fast.
ReplyDelete#2 I have to disagree. I don't find it any longer than any other average distro - including win/mac.
#3 3 laptops and no wireless card problems. Download them? I get so tired of people bitching that everything isn't absolutely perfect out the box. You have to install something? Big f-ing deal.
#4 - If you want support for hindi..here's a suggestion go make it and submit it to the devs.
Finally, Why in the hell would you run the GNOME desktop for Opensuse anyways? I mean really when you have the KDE option???
Want gnome..go get ubuntu or mint. Want KDE and a kick ass system with YaSt2...get opensuse.
@Anonymous:
ReplyDelete1. Did you follow the instructions on the official page or used alternative method? Alternative methods do work, while official method does not. FTP setup is not valid at all, I used Live run.
2. Not valid since you had USB boot.
3. Why do I need to download anything extra, if I know that my WiFi card is supported by some distros OOTB? Look here.
4. I am not talking about Hindi, but Russian. Although number of users in Hindi maybe as large too. I am talking about ability to switch between layouts. I tend to write to different people in different language, and I want to have this ability in every system.
GNOME was my choice. If system is released with KDE and GNOME, it should work for both. If developers know GNOME does not work... don't release it!
I tried Opensuse 12.1 to create a live persistent usb stick. I agree with you : it does not work. It boots and runs OK but no persistence.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteMy post was about OpenSuSE 11.4. But, as I understand from your comment, the issue was not fixed in 12.1 either.
Shame on OpenSuSE!
Try my persistent approach. It may require a larger usb disk space compared to the live system but that is persistent as any normal install you could find. here is the site.
ReplyDeletehttp://jason.ferrer.com.ph/2011/08/opensuse-on-usb-reloaded_16.html
Thanks for sharing the link. It is a good manual for those who wants to install SuSE onto USB stick. And yes, this is system installation, not the Live run.
DeleteIn Most of the comments here i see people doing wrong things and then blaming suse. If your partitions are deleted, you have choosen the wrong option. Its not Suse, its you. Suse is one of the few distros supporting KDE as default. I am on Suse 11.4 and have no problen whatso ever. Some applications work on few distros and some not. Thats the way linux is and it provides alternatives. Suse is configured with traditional ifup network command. thats why it shows the red icon in networking applet. One cick in yast will change it to Network manager.
ReplyDeleteI think I've done this click to switch to NM. Without much success.
DeleteI am surprised you mentioned KDE here. This was a review of GNOME version! Please be careful. If you're interested in review of OpenSuSE 11.4 KDE, I have it too.