| OpenSUSE 10.2 goes gold |
Dec. 07, 2006
 Analysis -- Despite loud arguments over Novell and Microsof's relationship, and attempts by Ubuntu to talk openSUSE developers into coming over to their distribution, openSUSE 10.2 has arrived sooner than expected.
This latest community Linux distribution from Novell, SUSE, and friends is based on a 2.6.18.2 Linux kernel. Users can choose between the KDE 3.5.5 or GNOME 2.16.1 desktop environments, both of which run on top of the X.Org 7.2rc2 windowing system.
When you first install openSUSE, the YaST partitioner now defaults to create new file systems using the ext3 file system. In the past, SUSE distributions had defaulted to using ReiserFS.
If you plan on using openSUSE as a server, you'll find the usual popular server applications ready to go. These include the Apache 2.2.3 webserver, and the MediaWiki 1.8.2 wiki software.
If, like most openSUSE users, you plan on using it primarily as a desktop, the new distribution comes with a full complement of desktop applications. A small sampling of these includes the Beagle 0.2.12 desktop search program, the Evolution 2.8.2 groupware program, Firefox 2.0, KOffice 1.6, OpenOffice 2.0.4, and Thunderbird 1.5.0.4.
Developers, also, won't be lacking, since this distribution includes, besides the usual gcc and family, the Eclipse 3.2.1 IDE (integrated development environment), gtk 2.10.1 GUI toolkit, and an assortment of high-level languages. Among others, you'll find Mono 1.1.18, Python 2.5, and PHP 5.2.
Old hands at openSUSE will be glad to hear that the developers have been continuing to improve the recently troublesome YaST package management system. Among other improvements to the package manager stack, the distribution now has a new update notification applet, opensuse-updater, and a console application called zipper. Neither of these utilities uses ZMD (ZENworks Management Daemon), which has been the source of most of SUSE's package management woes of late.
The openSUSE developers didn't stop with just fixing package management. They've also replaced "selections" with "patterns" for when you decide to add programs to your system.
With patterns, rather than selecting individual software packages and wondering why all those other programs and libraries were installed just to run, say, an email program, you're told why x, y, and z programs are being installed and how they relate to your desired application.
These patterns also include a listing of required, recommended, and suggested programs. OpenSUSE presents you with a selection of functional patterns. For example, if you chose the devel_kernel pattern from the development listing, you'll install everything you need for kernel development. If you picked gnome_admin from the GNOME desktop listing, you'll get all the GNOME administration tools, and their supporting software.
OpenSUSE 10.2 is available on your choice of 5 CD ISO images or a single DVD ISO image. If you go with the CDs, you can also select an add-on CD image with proprietary binary packages. OpenSUSE, itself, comes with no proprietary programs whatsoever. So, for instance, if you need Adobe Acrobat Reader or RealNetworks RealPlayer and you're using CDs, you'll need to either download the add-on CD or obtain such programs from an online file repository.
Users with high-bandwidth connections can also opt to install the distribution over the Internet. This still requires you to download and burn a mini-ISO CD image. After booting the system with this disc, you then can install the rest of the operating system from servers on the net.
The distribution now runs on the x86, x86-64, and POWER architectures. There's also a version available for the IA-64, aka Itanium, from Silicon Graphics.
You can download openSUSE 10.2 using HTTP, BitTorrent, or the relatively new Metalink. Metalink download managers can use Metalink XML links to download openSUSE from multiple mirror and P2P (peer to peer) sites simultaneously resulting in faster downloads.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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