A Look at openSUSE 10.3

by Michael J. Jordan, Managing Editor

November 23, 2007

Just a little over a month and half ago, Novell released their free community-developed version of SUSE Linux, known as openSUSE, version 10.3. I downloaded the DVD image and took my time to evaluate this offering of one of the more well-known Linux distributions. My impressions were, in general, favorable and I recommend this new version of SUSE, albeit with a few caveats. What follows is a bit of a how-to on installation, an explanation on what you need to do to get SUSE working for you along with my opinion about how it will work as an operating system for all your computing needs.

Installation

After downloading the openSUSE 10.3 DVD image via Bittorent, I proceeded to burn it to a DVD disk using the excellent 'gnomebaker'. I have always been a fan of K3B, but I have been using the GNOME desktop on my main workstation for about 6 months now and find the corresponding programs for GNOME excellent. 'gnomebaker' is one of them.

I put the DVD in the drive of my test machine, a 4 year old Pentium 4 with 500 mbs of RAM and an ATi Radeon for a video card. I try to use older, somewhat under-powered machines to test these distributions. That way, I get a good idea about how they might work for the public in general. An attractive green boot screen came up quickly and showed various options. I selected 'install' and I was on my way.

The first step you need to take is to choose your language. English is the default, but you can choose among many, many others - probably more than they use at the U.N. The next step is to check the installation media. Though this takes a while, it's definitely worth it. If you get half way through the installation and then have to stop because of a defect in the disk, then you'll see that it was time well spent. Next, you'll have to accept the license agreement. Though Novell and Microsoft signed a famous (or infamous) pact on IP last year, you should remember that openSUSE is the community version of their product, so you shouldn't need a lawyer present. Because of this agreement, there are a lot of people in the Linux community who are squeamish about using something developed under the auspices of Novell. For the record, I refuse to take sides here. I am just reviewing a product that was released for people to use. I'll let the reader decide the legal and/or moral questions for him or herself.

At this point, the installation program will probe your hardware so that it can proceed with installation. Once this is finished, it will ask you what installation options you want. There are two basic ones: 'New Installation', 'Update' plus other options.You can also choose at this point to add online repositories - for adding software not contained on the DVD and also to add separate media, in case you have other disks with software on them.

Since the install program needs to connect to the SUSE repositories, you'll need to set up your network connection at this point. Since automatic setups with DHCP are now standard in most places, this should be fairly easy. You won't even have to do anything. But in case you're not running a DHCP server, then you'll have to provide information about your IP address, netmask, the IP address of your gateway and the DNS servers of your Internet service provider. If you go through a proxy to get to the Web, then this is the time to specify this too.

Next, you'll be setting up your time zone and after, choosing your preferred desktop graphic user interface. In the Linux world, the main choices are KDE and GNOME. Since the KDE project has still not finished their new 4.0 desktop, I wasn't interested in using the older version that came on the DVD. I chose GNOME. I will say that I am looking forward to trying the new and improved KDE, so my choice by no means imply that I am not recommending KDE. I'd rather wait and see the new version, that's all.

Next comes the part that gives people the woollies - partitioning. But I can assure you that this is the easiest installation process I have come across for any Linux distribution so far. My test machine has a partition on it with Windows XP and it also had another version of Linux using up two other partitions. The install process was very intuitive. It just asked me if I wanted to keep what I had. I said yes and that was it. I will say that had I needed the files I was storing on the second Linux partition, I would have had to click on some options and tell the partitioning tool *not* to format the partition. But the process looks fairly easy. I might even say that a relative newcomer wouldn't find it too challenging.

The rest of the setup process is fairly straightforward. You just need to make sure that all of the settings that it shows you are the ones you want. It will recommend that you install certain programs and you can safely take the advice. Don't be surprised if a few EULAs pop up. After all, this distribution contains software, like Java and others that aren't covered under totally free licenses.

Now the system will begin to install. It took about 25 minutes on my machine.

After this process has finished, you'll be asked to provide an administrator or 'root' password and then check if you're keyboard is typing correctly - if you're using something other than a US layout. Next, you're not using a DHCP server, you'll be asked to provide a name for your computer and a domain name if that applies.

Next comes the network setup. You'll have a chance to set up any kind of network connection, including DSL, ISDN and dial-up. You can also set up a proxy connection as well. If everything is setup correctly, it will test your setup by downloading the SUSE 10.3 release notes. If you get the notes, then everything has gone fine.

There are just a few more administrative details you have to attend to before you can log in and use your system. One is that you have to choose the type of method to use in order to log in. These include the standard Linux password system (which I always choose), LDAP, NJS and even the Windows domain system. Then you'll have to select a user name and password to create a user account for your daily work.

Finally, the system will do a final hardware check to make sure that everything has been detected correctly. If all checks out here, the system will reboot and you're all ready to use your new openSUSE 10.3 Linux operating system.

Using openSUSE 10.3

The first thing that caught my eye when I first booted the system, is the clean look of openSUSE's version of the GNOME desktop. They have made some important changes. Some of these changes take a bit of getting used to, but I found them pleasant overall.

One of the changes to the user interface that I noticed is on some of the dialog boxes. Instead of having the standard 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons, they have moved to a system where there is a big button to choose whatever you want to do and then the 'cancel' button. The OK button doesn't exist anymore.

Also, the splash screens for most applications have been replaced by SUSE splash screens. This just shows the attention to detail that the SUSE development team has.

Overall, openSUSE sports an elegant look. Linux's reputation for having a less-attractive look is undeserved as far as openSUSE is concerned.

Though I think that openSUSE 10.3 can rival any proprietary operating system in terms of ease of use, during my testing, I have noticed some annoying and quirky behavior in some areas. I will talk about this in my conclusion. Now let's talk about some of things that will help you make your system better meet your computing needs.

Adding Repositories

A repository is a location on the web that contains additional software for your openSUSE system. Here, we'll look at how you can install new software from these repositories.

You need to fire up the control panel and choose 'open administrator settings'. You will be asked for the 'root' password. Go to the 'software' section and choose 'software repositories'. Click on the 'add' button. Here, you'll have to add some URLs in order to be able to install these. For example, if you wanted to add the excellent 'Video LAN' multimedia player, then you would do the following:

choose HTTP from the 'media type' menu give the repository a name. In this case, I choose 'Video LAN' in the server name, I put 'download.videolan.org' for the directory on the server, I added '/pub/vlc/SuSE/10.3'

Just press the 'OK' button and it will add this repository. For a complete list of openSUSE repositories with additional software you may want or need, see: http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories

Now, for example, to install videoLan or VLC for short, just select 'software management' in the same software section. Do a search for 'vlc' or 'video lan'. When it appears, select it and push the install button. Then push the 'accept' button. You will be asked to confirm. It will start downloading VLC and any dependencies and it will install them. When this process is finished, you can then use Video Lan.

Conclusion

I found openSUSE to be an excellent operating system. On a scale of 10, I would give it around a 9. I would take away that point for some glitches and minor annoyances that I have encountered. The worst of them was when I tried to install the Skype package that I had downloaded from the Skype website. After right clicking on the package and being asked for the administrator password, nothing happened. After several tries, I gave up and just opened a terminal window and did the old fashioned 'rpm -ihv skype***.rpm' and installed it. This I considered a major problem since we're trying to "sell" Linux for some time now with the promise that the command line is no longer necessary. I've also noticed a few glitches when logging in and out and switching users, but these were actually trivial problems, in my opinion.

I highly recommend openSUSE for anyone migrating from Windows. For example, for someone with Windows XP, installing Linux is going to be just about as painless as you can imagine. I should point out that if you have your entire hard disk taken up, you're going to need to use Partition Magic or some other repartitioning tool first. But that shouldn't be much trouble nowadays.

Though Slackware was the first Linux distribution I used, SuSE (then with a lowercase 'u') was the first one I used to get my day-to-day work done. It was a well-developed and polished distribution then. After going through a rough period, they were bought by Novell and the famous networking company has brought back some of the luster to the distribution. If you're looking to get out of the grips of Bill Gates and company, than openSUSE is an excellent alternative. Add the fact that it's absolutely free, and you can't go wrong. If you've tried other versions of Linux then you might want to give openSUSE 10.3 a try. I think of it as Ubuntu with a bit more glamour. Whatever your motives for trying it, I'm sure you'll find openSUSE 10.3 to your liking.

Michael J. Jordan is Managing Editor of Linux Online. He can be reached at Michael.Jordan**AT**linux.org