• About openSUSE is an open, free and secure operating system for PC, laptops, servers and ARM devices. Managing your emails, browsing the web, watching online streams, playing games, serving websites or doing office work never felt this empowering. And best part? It's not only backed by one of the leaders in open source industry, but also driven by lively community. Downloads • Traditional release based for those who prefer balanced environment • Cutting edge and tested with openQA, rolling release which always moves forward • Get additional software from openSUSE build service. Hi everyone, I've been an enthusiastic openSUSE user since the beginning, and I started my Linux journey way back in SuSE 6.x. However, at the moment, I am no longer using openSUSE on my own systems, nor am I recommending it to new users.

I'd like to explain my reasons, which have to do in part with my experiences in helping others switch to openSUSE in the past. I do not in any way intend to insult the hard work of dedicated openSUSE developers, and I know I have already expressed these issues extensively in the past both here and on the mailing lists. But I'm hoping that the 'Leap' to 42 will be a good time to maybe turn over a new leaf and take a fresh look at addressing these points: (1.) Font rendering: I know this is highly subjective, and I'm much more sensitive to this than most are. But pretty much every Linux distro review I read (and I read all of them) complain about openSUSE's font rendering (they also frequently complain about Fedora) and they usually highly commend Ubuntu for its fonts. I would tend to agree on both sides, and I would also add that Arch-based distros also have great font rendering. But to get satisfactory results in openSUSE I have to research to see what is currently the best maintained/compatible OBS repo for better supixel rendering, as well as see what sort of config file tweaks I need to make and which default packages need to be replaced. This is something I would prefer not to have to do out of the box.

Could the Leap 42 team try to take another look at how other 'free' distros like Ubuntu and Arch manage to ship beautiful font rendering out of the box without getting into legal/patent problems? (2.) Easier driver installation: I personally only run Intel systems with open drivers. But a lot of other potential users have graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD with a closed Linux driver development program. One of the big reasons that proprietary graphics drivers are sometimes needed is actually not for graphics performance, but rather thermal performance and fan noise reduction. I know about the Community guides with the '1-click' install for drivers. But for Leap 42 it would be really nice to take this to the next level and offer an integrated 'Restricted Drivers' tool, pretty much exactly like Ubuntu has. I really think Ubuntu got it right on this one.

Many newer users don't think to try to install a graphics driver from a community website, and they often don't know which one of the many options to use. The Ubuntu 'Restricted Drivers' tool automatically identifies which driver(s) are compatible with the user's hardware, and it even allows easily switching back to the OSS drivers if the user later wants to. I strongly feel this should be an integral part of YaST, not a website. The YaST tool is so all-inclusive that it seems strange to not also offer a drivers tool there too, especially given the general focus of openSUSE on ease-of-use. (3.) Eliminate software patterns / recommended packages in fresh installs: I would like to suggest that for Leap 42 that software patterns no longer be installed out of the box. Software patterns create two annoyances: First, when a user tries to remove unwanted packages, the patterns' dependencies later results in them being automatically re-installed. This frequently irritates users.

Get Microsoft's Core Fonts for the Web and Cleartype Fonts. For Redhat, Fedora, Centos, SUSE, Mandrake, Yellowdog, and any linux distro that uses RPM. Having trouble viewing documents produced on Windows? The fonts don't look right, unreadable? You need the to get the right fonts so the documents. If you want to get the new Microsoft ClearType fonts, you need to install the fetchvistafonts from the openSUSE Build Service. OpenSUSE 11.0 users: If there's no openSUSE 11.0 package available, use package for SLE_11 or openSUSE 11.1 instead. Warning: The GUI installer fails to trigger the necessary install script.

For example: I REALLY wish they would improve packaging- too many packages, dependency hell and the resolution to that being to install 'patterns' which 'solve' the problem by installing everything! Every time I install opensuse somewhere, I have to go to the yast and mark many packages taboo otherwise they keep sneaking up on you. The second issue with software patterns is that they add a lot of unsatisfied recommended dependencies, which zypper tries to satisfy after a fresh installation. This results in a glut of new packages being 'forced' upon the user. For example, after a new installation they try to install a new text editor or whatever, and the system proceeds to download 127MB of new software that includes boatload of packages that have nothing to do with the tiny additional program they tried to install. (4.) Crippling of proprietary hooks in OSS packages: Newer users often understand the concept of proprietary software, for example an additional MP3 library to export MP3 from Audacity or rip a protected DVD with K3B.

But openSUSE is infamous for compiling their packages so as to be incompatible with proprietary features provided by 3rd party packages. So even if the user tries to add in those additional features, they also need to replace core OSS packages with other versions provided by Packman that are compiled without proprietary features disabled.

This is counterintuitive for many, and even for me it's sort of a pain to have to re-install a bunch of multimedia packages. I understand the reasons why openSUSE can't provide patent-encumbered features by default, but could Leap 42 programs at least be compiled to take advantage of proprietary libs from external sources if the user chooses to add them? Ubuntu offers a very nice, simple package called ubuntu-restricted-extras that pulls in everything that a typical user needs in terms of codecs, Microsoft fonts, Flash, and a few other goodies. (5.) More live ISOs: I think openSUSE Leap 42 should be more pragmatic about the reality that many users don't like KDE or Gnome, and they don't want to download a 4GB+ DVD to get different desktops. They would prefer a pre-configured system with an optimized desktop configuration for the other popular desktops like Mate, XFCE, Cinnamon, LXDE/LXQT, and others. Yes, all of those can be installed after the fact. But I and many other users would just like a simple, smaller, targeted, live ISO that contains just their preferred desktop with the ideal login manager and default configuration with no other extraneous desktops and no unwanted desktop packages to remove.

I'm also aware of the existence of SUSE Studio, but those spins often seem unprofessional and don't get updated. More official variants would show users that openSUSE really cares about other desktops than KDE/Gnome. (6.) A software center: The openSUSE '1-click' system is rather infamous for requiring much more than one click, and it requires a web browser. Users usually look for a 'Software Center' integrated application, and they want some kind of filter to distinguish between GUI and CLI apps.

The YaST software tool is good for advanced users, but I wish there was a more approachable, integrated software center for less experienced users. (7.) A more sane default CUPS / printer driver setup: openSUSE has always given me trouble with pretty much all the printers I throw at it, whereas the same printers plug'n'play on other distros. This is owing in part to openSUSE using an older legacy version of CUPS, and it also appears that openSUSE doesn't have a very well rounded default selection of printer driver packages. This is probably owing to openSUSE's corporate support legacy. But the fact remains that it often requires a lot of additional OBS repos and switching of package sources to make a printer work. Sorry for the wall of text.:) I realized that I've made heavy use of the expression 'users want.' In this post.

I say this because I have tried to help a lot of users switch to Linux, and I can see the distro through their eyes, not those of an experienced Linux geek. Plus, I read a LOT of reviews, and I have a pretty good idea of what is currently possible to make Linux work 'out of the box' without a lot of additional fussing and tweaking.

I think openSUSE can improve a lot in this regard, and I would love to be able to recommend such a progressive, flexible, professional distro to others, and I still want it back on my own systems. I really hope that Leap 42 will be the opportunity to address some or all of these points. Thanks for reading! 1) Please provide a) Screenshots that show where we're doing wrong, because my font rendering in GNOME is beautiful and b) clear suggestions of what you'd change - someone should be able to do it then. In my experience, the biggest problem with Font rendering is our fontconfig gives too much preference for MS TTF fonts if they're installed, and I'm hoping we can remove that soon. 2) We're looking into it. Keeping to both the letter and the spirit of the GPL is a big part of this - we do not want to cross the line where we are effectively poisoning our own kernel and breaching the GPL by shipping it with proprietary modules.

3) Patterns only reinstall removed packages if you're doing a zypper dup all the time. Don't do a zypper dup all the time, especially with Leap, that would be crazy. Patterns only pull through hundreds of extra packages if you install from live ISOs, don't install from live ISO's, we don't recommend it (See my answer to 5) 4) We have to worry about the laws (especially in the US) regarding enabling/facilitating the use of software which is patent encumbered. A lot of the suggestions to resolve this cross into dangerous territory, and unfortunately 'but other distributions take those risks' doesn't carry much weight when I'm discussing this with our lawyers ('Other distributions don't make as much money as SUSE, so are less likely to be sued' is often their counter argument). Not saying there is nothing that can be done in this area, but I don't see Leap bringing anything new to the table. 5) No LiveISO's are expected for Leap 42.1, and if they are done, they almost certainly wont include an installer.

The Network CD is the recommended method for anyone who doesn't want to download 4GB, just like it was for openSUSE 13.2 6) We have Software in GNOME. That's exactly what you want, and we've expended huge effort in improving the meta data for our packages to make it a rich experience. Hopefully KDE will build something similar. 7) Not true, Tumbleweed has CUPS 2.0 and tracks upstream. 1) Please provide a) Screenshots that show where we're doing wrong, because my font rendering in GNOME is beautiful and b) clear suggestions of what you'd change - someone should be able to do it then. In my experience, the biggest problem with Font rendering is our fontconfig gives too much preference for MS TTF fonts if they're installed, and I'm hoping we can remove that soon. I think it's more of a problem with KDE.

The bad font rendering was one of the first things that popped up to me when I installed openSUSE 13.1 KDE. Even the subpixel rendering settings in KDE do not cut it. I had to install infinality and do a lot of tweaking before I got it to look as good as Ubuntu/Mint. I think GNOME is better on openSUSE, but if I remember correctly, even the fonts in YaST look different from the rest of the DE. I'll have to take some screenshots later. The suggestion is easy - for safe hassle free upgrades of packages from the same sources that provided you the currently installed packages, only use zypper up When playing with additional repos - use zypper dup --from $REPO if you want to quickly upgrade everything to the versions in that repo, but then use zypper up at all other times.

Using zypper dup without --from when using additional repos is DANGEROUS because a plain zypper dup trusts those repositories as if they are as good as the official ones When upgrading from one major distro version to another, use zypper dup, because that is what it is made for (distribution upgrades) On Tumbleweed, zypper up is all you should need to use, however, sometimes, as an edge case, occasionally, packages dependencies will have changed so significantly that a zypper dup might be an idea. I do it about once a month, but normally don't actually follow through, just see what changes it is offering separate from a zypper up and maybe tidy up the packages manually, it's once in a blue moon, and has never actually led to anything broken for me. On Tumbleweed, zypper up is all you should need to use, however, sometimes, as an edge case, occasionally, packages dependencies will have changed so significantly that a zypper dup might be an idea. I do it about once a month, but normally don't actually follow through, just see what changes it is offering separate from a zypper up and maybe tidy up the packages manually, it's once in a blue moon, and has never actually led to anything broken for me. If that's actually true, then you have a huge public outreach and documentation to do -- EVERYONE other than you has always said the only supported update path on TW is to use 'zypper dup'.

It's all over the factory mailing list and the forums whenever someone has a problem. I see, thank you. Yes, every now and again a zypper dup would install some packages that caused incompatibilities between packman and repo-update.

In that case, a zypper dup --from repo-oss will try to fulfill dependencies first from the official repo, and then from packman? And, how does this react if I also enable the Mozilla community repository to get the latest version of Firefox (for clarification, I'm on Tumbleweed)? If I try a zypper dup --from repo-oss now, it breaks many things because the proprietary-compatible packages of e.g. VLC and VirtualBox are ignored in favour of repo-oss.

But if I do --from packman, isn't this the 'trust as good as the official ones' problem you described? Mgk Black Flag Download 320 Kbps Music.