openSuSE 11.0 review (long)

[Superego]

I recently installed openSuSE 11.0 and thought I'd give a little review. I've been running Ubuntu 7.10 on my T60p for about the last year and have been very happy with it, especially for its "it just works" factor. I considered upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04, but given that Linux has made some serious progress in the last year, particular in the area of drivers/peripherals and general usability, I decided to look at what else was out there. Initially I tried openSuSE 10.3, but I had trouble installing the ATI drivers (either through YaST or directly from ATI) and the wireless drivers (dropped connections, hidden ESSIDs, WPA). After some frustration and distro-hopping (PCLinuxOS, Kubuntu, Fedora) I decided to look at the beta release of openSuSE 11.0. To my surprise, everything worked out of the box! So here's my experience with openSuSE 11.0, which is no longer beta but openSuSE 11.0 RC1. You can skip to the bottom if you want the short version.

Install:
This has got to be the sexiest installer I've seen (although I can't comment on Mac OS X). I used the 4.5GB DVD which has 4 different desktop managers (GNOME, KDE 3.5 and 4.0, & Xfce) and a more packages than you could probably want. Besides the look the installer is fast. I've used SuSE before and I was expecting a 2-hour install time (adding repositories, online update, etc.). When the whole process was done in 45 minutes I was blown away, especially since I added more packages than the default options and installed 3 of desktop managers (Both KDE versions and GNOME; I wanted to try them all and then remove those I didn't like). I feel the installer is easy enough for Linux beginners to use (it reminded me of a more polished version of the Ubuntu installer), but still has enough advanced options for power users (software management, partitioner, etc.). A note to those who don't want to download the DVD, there are GNOME and KDE live CDs available.

Desktop Managers:
I installed KDE 4.0 to see what all the hype was about. Overall, I wasn't that impressed. I think it tries to be a Mac/Vista clone for Linux. It has desktop widgets and menu bar with a navigation similar to Vista. Frankly, the new menu bar annoyed me as it took too long to navigate it. I could see how Linux newcomers might like the menu bar and, as with just about everything in KDE, I'm sure I could customize it my liking, but I don't want to take that time just yet. The file manger, Dolphin, is ok but not groundbreaking. First, let me say that I like Konqueror but sometimes it tries to do too much and can cause problems; I don't always want to open a picture, text document, webpage, or movie in the same application. In my opinion, Nautilus is probably the best file manager, and Dolphin is trying to emulate it. I commend the developers for trying to slim down Konqueror, but Dolphin has a very unfinished feel. Overall, KDE 4 still has some work to do, but I think it could be pretty good in the near future. For now I'm using KDE 3.5 and keeping 4.0 installed and waiting on the back burner. For those interested, I did check out GNOME. The GNOME installed is actually the Novell-tweaked version you'd find in SLED 10 and it's the same great DM with a slightly sleeker look. I think it's one of the better looking GNOME desktops you'll find. I didn't keep GNOME installed only because I wanted to keep some hard drive space open and I know I can always blow KDE 4 away and put on the old trustworthy GNOME.

YaST:
In terms of general system administration, I think YaST performs superbly. However, as a package manager I've always disliked its sluggishness. The one thing drawing me toward Ubuntu (or any other Debian-based distro) was the speed and usability of Synaptic. I'm pleased to say that the new YaST in 11.0 is faster and more stable than previous versions (probably the best rpm-based package manager) and has new feature: zypper. Zypper is a command-line utility similar to yum or apt-get. I don't know about some users but there are times when I want to use a full-blown package manager like YaST and other times when I'm working in the command line and just want to quickly download and install a small utility package. You can't beat "sudo apt-get install XXXX" for this aspect, but zypper is a close second. It still has some kinks to work out, but it's definitely an improvement and closes the gap with Ubuntu.

Software:
As I said before the DVD comes loaded with most of the software you'd want and setting up the repositories is a hell of a lot quicker than previous versions of SuSE (I remember this taking 30-60 minutes in some cases and crashing quite often; now it's done in a few minutes). I can't remember what came installed by default as I changed and added a fair amount, but I will say that it is most of what you'd expect is there (Firefox 3, OpenOffice, K3b, AmaroK, etc). The nice thing is that I haven't run into the issue of "what, that's not installed by default?" In fact, I've been pleasantly surprised in some cases. For example, I rely on gcc-4.1 or greater as it has OpenMP support. I had to install this from source when I had Ubuntu. I don't mind installing some things from source, but sometimes I prefer to let the package manager handle certain important programs (gcc being one of them) as it eliminates some of the hassle of dependencies and updating. I was tickled to see gcc-4.3 in the repositories by default. Also, if you use virtual machines at all this is the distro for you. The DVD comes with the Xen hypervisor, Qemu and Virtualbox, and open vmtools, all without any special configuration needed. Compiz-fusion comes pre-installed, and I was able to get the desktop effects working fine, although I prefer not to use them. Overall, I haven't had to do nearly as much configuration as I have done in the past (even on Ubuntu with its vast repositories).

Hardware:
This is probably the area that is a deal-killer for most people (it is for me). As I said before, my Intel 3945abg worked out of the box with the iwl3945 drivers. I was up and connected to my WPA2, hidden ESSID home wireless network within minutes. The network manager in 11.0 is improved and I no longer have to use that dang wallet manager...I can just set up a network profile and save it. One annoying thing is that the wireless light at the bottom of my screen doesn't work now (although the Bluetooth one does). This isn't a big deal as the network manager icon in my system tray displays everything I need to know. I installed the driver for my FireGL V5200 from ATI's website (I don't believe there is an ATI repository for SuSE 11.0 yet) and everything worked fine. Interestingly, when I used the same procedure on SuSE 10.3 my X session would crash immediately upon logging in...go figure. My favorite feature is that standby and hibernate work out of the box, something I never had with Ubuntu (even fn+f4 and fn+f12 work)! The one problem I've run into involves my Ultrabay hard drive external usb drives. In Ubuntu, they just worked. In SuSE they mount fine (the Ultrabay took some tweaking in fstab) but I had to modify permissions and groups in order to gain read-write access. Not a big deal, but I could see where newbies would be frustrated. SuSE comes with Thinkfinger installed, and you can even configure it through YaST. My one complaint with that is that I can't set up the fingerprint reader for KDM login or screensaver unlock (which is where I use it the most).

Overall Impressions:
After I installed SuSE 11.0 and poked around a little I was hooked. I'm actually glad 10.3 failed miserably on my Thinkpad or I probably wouldn't have tried 11.0. Practically everything works out the box with little to no configuration. I've always felt openSuSE has been a bit of a power user's distro, more so than, say, PCLinuxOS or Ubuntu but less than something like Slackware or Gentoo. At its heart I feel 11.0 still is, but I think newcomers will be able to easily use SuSE 11.0. To sum up I like the comparison one reviewer made: "OpenSUSE 11 RC1: The Mercedes-Benz to Ubuntu’s Volkswagen". I don't want to beat up on Ubuntu (I've used it, love it, and would reccommend it in a heartbeat) but I've always felt it could use some polishing. The new SuSE release gives that sleek, polished, put-together feel of a major distribution (I'm talking about more than just eye-candy you can download from kde-look.org). Some may like that and others may not...it just happens to be exactly what I've been loooking for.

Pros:
- Clean, polished look
- Almost complete hardware compatibility with little to no configuration (wireless, ATI graphics card, fingerprint reader, standby/hibernate)
- Vastly improved package management with YaST
- Fully loaded distribution (could also be considered a con for some)
- KDE 3.5 and Novell-branded GNOME look awesome
- Community support of SuSE is probably second only to Ubuntu

Cons:
- USB drives require some configuration
- Misc. bugs associated with a beta release (Although they appear to be updated somewhat quickly. Example: When I initially installed 11.0 knetwork-manager displayed 3 different icons all showing basically the same thing. Last night a dist-upgrade fixed this and it now works perfectly)
- Large installation that some may not want
- KDE 4 still needs some work, but not really a SuSE issue
- Probably not the best choice for older machines or users looking for a small footprint

You can check out some screenshots, both of the installer and the various desktop managers.

Enjoy!

[K0LO]

That was a great review; thanks for writing it.

I've been playing with KDE 4 on and off and I agree with your assessment. At the moment it is alpha-quality software - still lacking a lot of features and very buggy, but the promise is there. For now I've gravitated back to KDE 3.5 on Kubuntu 8.04.

[tylerwylie]

That was a great review; thanks for writing it.

Agreed.

I will definitely be trying this out when the stable release comes out. I'm currently using Fedora 9, and it is great and all, and Ubuntu doesn't do it for me either. I'm probably waiting for the next CentOS / Red Hat based on Fedora, which I think will be based on Fedora 8(I hope).

[skchoe]

Hi, thanks for the review.

I'm suffering from an issue of ATI driver from ati.amd.com.
In T42, opensuse10.2 w/ KDE4, it flickers annoyingly. But
mesa 7.0.3 works fine (no hardware acc.)

I wonder if 11.0 and ATI driver doesn't show the issue or not.

Thank you.

S.

[Superego]

Hi, thanks for the review.

I'm suffering from an issue of ATI driver from ati.amd.com.
In T42, opensuse10.2 w/ KDE4, it flickers annoyingly. But
mesa 7.0.3 works fine (no hardware acc.)

I wonder if 11.0 and ATI driver doesn't show the issue or not.

Thank you.

S.

Sorry, I can't comment on 10.2. I had major issues installing the driver in 10.3 (either through the repositories or through ati.com). I haven't had any issues with the driver in 11.0.

Have you tried running something other than KDE 4? When I couldn't get the driver to work in KDE 3.5 I never even attempted KDE 4.0 as it's still somewhat unstable.

[skchoe]

Hi, thanks for the review.

I'm suffering from an issue of ATI driver from ati.amd.com.
In T42, opensuse10.2 w/ KDE4, it flickers annoyingly. But
mesa 7.0.3 works fine (no hardware acc.)

I wonder if 11.0 and ATI driver doesn't show the issue or not.

Thank you.

S.

Sorry, I can't comment on 10.2. I had major issues installing the driver in 10.3 (either through the repositories or through ati.com). I haven't had any issues with the driver in 11.0.


Have you tried running something other than KDE 4? When I couldn't get the driver to work in KDE 3.5 I never even attempted KDE 4.0 as it's still somewhat unstable.

Thanks for the comment. I remember I had installed ati driver from ati.com but it had flicker problem still. It's good to hear that suse 11.0 will be good to this problem and also instead of ati.com driver, I might be able to use AIGLX driver for hardware acceleration.
(http://news.opensuse.org/2008/06/07/sne ... -kasprzyk/)

thanks.

S.

[rssb]

Is there any possibility of getting Access connections or battery ( power manager) for SUSE 11 anywhere. Lenovo released something for T60's but that was locked to a particular kernel version...

[Superego]

Is there any possibility of getting Access connections or battery ( power manager) for SUSE 11 anywhere. Lenovo released something for T60's but that was locked to a particular kernel version...

This is the link you want and yes they are listed for kernel 2.6.16-21-smp. I downloaded and installed each one as a test and had problems.

The Access connections rpm installs fine but it listed my eth0 as disabled. With some tinkering I bet someone could get this to work but, honestly, I think the whole interface looks like crap and knetworkmanager is working brillantly (if ain't broke, don't fix it!). The other rpms, the power manager and the configuration, threw some errors at install:

insmod: error inserting '/opt/thinkpad/install/batinfo.ko': -1 Invalid module format

and some other stuff related to my cisco vpn. However, they did install and you can use the programs but, of course, they don't detect the battery. Maybe recompiling the kernel will fix these problems, but that's more work than I'd prefer and I'm no expert on the Linux kernel (I've only compiled it twice, with help, and I'd rather not do it again unless it's absolutely necessary).

[rssb]

@Superego

Yeah same here, the wireless is ok, but having the power manager might help to run it more cooler and access other battery charging functions.

I am currently running 2.6.22.17-0.1 SMP currently. Hope someone can come up with something or lenovo will compile for the latest kernel ( assuming it would be difficult for them to make the src open to everyone )

[tylerwylie]

I've been using RC1 that I did a `zypper dup` to 11 for a week now, and I have to say.... holy crap it is amazing. I no longer see a reason to use Ubuntu, Fedora, or any other distribution.

[GomJabbar]

I'm trying the Live CD of openSUSE KDE 4 right now. Looks pretty good!

Might have to get another hard drive to install all these interesting OS's on.
[I already have XP, Vista, and Mandriva 2008.1 Powerpack installed]

BTW, great review Superego!

EDIT: My internet has been flying today. I don't know if Comcast has juiced up the system, if it is Firefox 3, or if it is openSUSE 11. I haven't seen browsing this fast since I don't know when. I am still running from the Live CD. [Note that I normally use Opera and rarely use Firefox.]

[RasmusP]

Hey,
I want to get OpenSuse up and running during the summer. Should I grab the 64bit or the 32bit version? I have a X60 with C2D processor and 2 GB of RAM.
In Windows people seem to recommend 32 bit over 64 bit. Is that true for Linux as well?
Thanks in advance,
Rasmus

[Superego]

Well now that the final release is out and I'm finished updating I'm happier than a pig in **** . I wish KDE 4.1 had been released in time as I'm kind of warming up the new desktop. I couldn't believe the interest in this release; Yesterday I wanted to download a liveCD for an older machine in my lab that doesn't have a DVD-ROM...Holy crap were Novell's servers getting hammered!

@GomJabbar: Thanks for comments. How do you like Mandrive 2008 compared to the new openSuSE? If 11.0 had turned out to be a dud that was the next distro on my list.

@RasmusP: I don't have much experience with 64-bit OS's, but here's a 64-bit advantages/disadvantages guide on the Ubuntu forums that might be of some assistance:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=368607

I would say download both and try dual-booting, although downloading both DVD's might take a while.

[GomJabbar]

@GomJabbar: Thanks for comments. How do you like Mandrive 2008 compared to the new openSuSE? If 11.0 had turned out to be a dud that was the next distro on my list.

I like it a lot. The only real problems I encountered are getting suspend and hibernate to work properly with the hotkeys Fn + F4 and Fn + F12. For some reason when I use the hotkeys for suspend, it resumes then suspends again. I have to bring it out of suspend twice for it to stay out. However if I choose suspend from the KPowersave menu it works properly. BTW, I am using the laptop kernel.

I haven't spent much time with hibernate, but what happens is that it starts to hibernate, but then just resumes. It won't stay hibernated. I really never used hibernate anyway, so this does not matter so much to me.

I saw a post on the Mandriva forum where there is a fix for these problems and the latest Lenovo notebooks by adding a quirk file. Has something to do with the HAL. Unfortunately the code does not include the T42. The code could be modified, but it will take trial and error to figure out what to put in it. Here is the link to the site with the code. Apparently you have to paste the code into this file: /usr/share/hal/fdi/information/10freedesktop/20-video-quirk-pm-lenovo.fdi .
http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsien ... check.html

I had all my hokey problems ironed out in the previous version of Mandriva I was running - 2007.1 Free. When I installed it, the desktop kernel is what installed. I tried the laptop kernel with 2007.1, but it did not work with the TouchPad and TrackPoint. At some point I may try the desktop kernel with Mandriva 2008.1. Perhaps then I would not have these suspend and hibernate problems.

I don't know if suspend and hibernate would work properly with openSUSE without actually installing it on my T42. Maybe if I get another hard drive...

[medievalventilator]

It won't boot on my T60. After installation, I get a screen saying "Error loading operating system". I know I did not have this problem with Ubuntu 7.10. Do those of you who dealt with this problem have any solutions?

I gather that it has something to do with the MBR. How can I fix this from within the LiveCD?

All help much appreciated.

[Superego]

It won't boot on my T60. After installation, I get a screen saying "Error loading operating system". I know I did not have this problem with Ubuntu 7.10. Do those of you who dealt with this problem have any solutions?

I gather that it has something to do with the MBR. How can I fix this from within the LiveCD?

All help much appreciated.

Hmmm...I'm wondering if you have bad installation media. It may be a problem with the MBR, but I'd expect a GRUB error with that.

First, are you dual-booting? Please describe your partition layout and then we'll go from there.

[medievalventilator]

Thank you for your response Superego. I did the checksum test on the media. I just now got it to work by using an LVM-based installation rather than a partition-based one. I guess this is more dodging the problem than solving it.

Now, I have another problem: The machine is running extremely hot. Is there anything for SUSE that is nearly as functional as the comprehensive fan options available for Windows?

[stgreek]

One annoying thing is that the wireless light at the bottom of my screen doesn't work now (although the Bluetooth one does). This isn't a big deal as the network manager icon in my system tray displays everything I need to know.

This has nothing to do with OpenSUSE (or Ubuntu, or any distro for that matter). It is a bug in the iwl drivers distributed with kernel versions earlier than 2.6.25 or so, and it is fixed in the latest drivers.

Nice review, by the way

[venro]

Thanks for the review.

The new 11 opensuse works really strange on my T60.

DNS for ati.com or amd.com doesn't work property. On XP there's no problem, so it isn't connection issue (DHCP).

When i'm trying to configure network through a tool in tray, it's saying that i should use yast or something like that. So what's the point of the one in tray?

Also... what did they do with gnome interface/looks?? Man, i'm going back to ubuntu.

[Superego]

DNS for ati.com or amd.com doesn't work property. On XP there's no problem, so it isn't connection issue (DHCP).

Is it just with these sites? Are you having issues with any other sites?

When i'm trying to configure network through a tool in tray, it's saying that i should use yast or something like that. So what's the point of the one in tray?

It's a security feature....more for large deployments were sys. admins configure the network options. Go to YaST->Network Devices->Network Settings. In the Overview tab select which interface you want to configure and click Edit. This should bring up a network card setup window and then go to General tab. There is a checkbox for "enable non-root use" or something to that effect. I would recommend repeating this process for each device you want to use via the network manager icon in the tool tray (which is probably just eth0 and wlan0).

Also... what did they do with gnome interface/looks?? Man, i'm going back to ubuntu.

I happen to like the SuSE-modified GNOME look (they introduced it in SLED 10 I think). To each his own....

[venro]

Is it just with these sites? Are you having issues with any other sites?

I've opened about 20-30 sites. Didn't have time for more. Only this two sites didn't work. My DNS are 194.204.159.1, 194.204.152.34, if you'd like to check that but probably it's something else (dunno).

There is a checkbox for "enable non-root use" or something to that effect.

Thanks, my hope is back

Is it possible with ati drivers to do dual monitor setup (non clone)?