| OpenSUSE 10.2 beta 1 has improvements, bugs |
Oct. 27, 2006
 With all the big news about new Linux releases -- Fedora Core 6 and Ubuntu 6.10 -- the release of the first beta of OpenSUSE 10.2 might easily be missed. The latest beta of this popular community-based Linux distro emerged Oct. 26.
Andreas Jaeger, Novell's SUSE Linux project manager, says that the OpenSUSE 10.2 beta includes "a large number of enhancements and updates done by the open source community and Novell's development teams."
The new distribution is based on a 2.6.18.1 Linux Kernel. For the desktop interface, it comes with both GNOME 2.16.1 and KDE 3.5.5 running on top of X11 R7.2 RC. GNOME and KDE also boast improved start menus.
For those who like desktop eye-candy, this latest OpenSUSE also includes the latest stable versions of xgl and compiz. Together, these create a 3D desktop interface with other features such as translucent windows.
The release also comes with the latest desktop applications. These include Firefox 2.0, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4, Koffice 1.6, gnucash 2.0.2, and the ekiga 2.0.2 VoIP and video conferencing application. It also includes , for the first time, the wink 1.5 software tutorial and presentation creation software. To print from these and other applications, OpenSUSE 10.2 beta 1 includes cups 1.2.4
Developers will find their needs met with glibc 2.5, Python 2.5, Eclipse 3.2.1, and the PHP 5.2 RC (Release Candidate).
The long troublesome package manager, while finally fixed in the OpenSUSE 10.1 "remastered" release, also continues to get improvements. The update stack has had its features tuned up and its speed increased. It also includes a new update notification applet, opensuse-updater, and a console application called zypper that are non-ZMD (ZENworks Management Daemon) based.
The last of these is interesting, because Novell had committed to switching to using ZMD, instead of the older YOU (YaST online update), since OpenSUSE 10.1. This new update program doesn't have all of ZMD's features -- like remote management and bundle handling -- but it's hoped that it will work faster than ZMD. If it works well, it's possible that it will be included in the next version of SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop).
Since this is a beta, there are also some problems that you're likely to run into. The biggest of these is that while OpenSUSE will work on x86 and x86-64, this first 10.2 beta release will not run on PowerPC-based systems at this time.
In addition, you can't install OpenSUSE on a fresh hard disk without any prior partitioning while using EVMS (Enterprise Volume Management System) -- you simply can't do it at this time. Also, no matter what you select for YaST2-bootloader options during the installation, if you use the Grub bootmanager it will install in the MBR (master boot record).
For more on known problems see the distribution's most annoying bugs list. All versions of OpenSUSE 10.2 beta 1, including the broken PPC one, can be downloaded from the OpenSUSE Development Build site.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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