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Yesterday I said I wanted to try out openSUSE 10.3. Today, I downloaded and installed it, and decided to post about my experiences.

openSUSE and Ubuntu both have live cd versions that allow a user to boot into the operating system without installing to or using the hard disk. With the Ubuntu live cd, a user can also choose to install the operating system from the live cd.

I decided to stick with GNOME (and probably will until the release of KDE 4.1, which I am looking forward to very much) and downloaded the openSUSE 10.3 GNOME install cd. The download was a little slow (only about 80 kbps instead of my usual 300 or so, maybe because of recent Novell server issues), but after a while it finished and I burned it to a cd. I backed up my personal data on Ubuntu, and then rebooted into the openSUSE installer.

The initial bootup screen is nice, green is a good color for an operating system and I like the “Welcome” message in multiple languages, but the resolution is not quite correct. I am prompted to select my installation options, and this brings up the another comparison I want to make between Ubuntu and openSUSE.

The openSUSE installer gives the user a lot more control over the install, which is good for advanced users, but can be confusing to beginners. The openSUSE installer is very usable for advanced users, perhaps more usable than Ubuntu’s alternate (non-graphical) installer. For a new user installing openSUSE, the default choices are good, but Ubuntu’s installer is probably better for such users, and also is faster and more streamlined.

Anyway, I choose the basic installation without options (the second menu choice) and after a while I am taken to an installation screen with a number of steps. The first step is a Media Check, which I skip (probably not the best idea). The second step is about the License Agreement, which I accept and then move on to the third step, choosing Installation Mode. Anyway, I proceed through each step of the installation usually keeping the defaults, except for things like partitioning and also disabling automatic login. The entire installation process takes about an hour and a half, but probably would take considerably less time if I did not choose to use online updates during the install (my connection to Novell/openSUSE servers is always slow). I reboot because of a kernel upgrade, and then complete the installation. Finally I can log into my new openSUSE desktop.

Tags: openSUSE

Having only used Debian-based Linux distros in the past, I have mostly formed my opinion of rpm distributions from other people’s horror stories about .rpm package management and the like. Still, the lastest version of the SUSE Linux distribution, now called openSUSE, looks very promising, and I will be trying it out in the near future

I have never really used any Linux distributions before other than Ubuntu (which I love…mostly) and Linux Mint (which is just ok), so I am eager to try something new, to broaden my horizons and to learn something more about the world of Linux. I’ll probably be a little biased against openSUSE because of the things I had heard about its package management and about Novell’s “evil” deal with Microsoft, but I want to give it a try myself.

Tags: openSUSE