OpenSUSE 10.3 Alpha 3 has been released. “On x86-64: Firefox is now a 64-bit package and uses nspluginwrapper to handle 32bit i386 plugins if needed; AppArmor uses now a new parser; the kernel patches have been reworked completely; GNOME 2.18 mostly integrated; update to kernel 2.6.21RC5.”
Don’t get me wrong, openSuSE is great for newbies but sadly one can’t redistribute the CD without going through all the hassle of removing Novell tm. If it is really to reach out to an open source community, don’t limit what they could do with it, IMHO.
Open source does not mean lazy source. You can redistribute Opensuse as is and respect Novell’s trademarks or replace them with your own where that’s necessary.
This isn’t too difficult as you can see from the CentOS relationship with Red Hat enterprise.
I have no problem with trademarks as they do not impact your ability to work with the code, modify and redistribute it. The only thing they really do is they make sure that someone cannot create a nastysuse full of rootkits and legally call it opensuse.
Edited 2007-04-12 23:22
You have valid point about someone put a rootkit in and call it OpenSuSE. But if you read GPL, there is no warranties whatsoever and it even doesn’t prohibit you from re-distributing.
Again, is openSuSE 100% GPL compliance? The answer is No.
When you install openSuSE and Mandriva for example. Read the license carefully. You will see where the difference is. And I’m sure you’re aware of it.
I haven’t paid attention much to Fedora Core, which is a project from Red Hat. I don’t think they prohibit you to re-distribute FC, do they? So, why can’t Novell let go of its tm name as RH did with Fedora Core?
Edited 2007-04-13 01:02
The GPL is exclusively dealing with *copyright* issues. Trademark is an entirely different area of law and one not covered by the GPL. There is no incompatibility between the GPL and enforcing one’s trademark. OpenSUSE – and, indeed, Red Hat Enterprise Linux – are entirely GPL-compliant from this view.
We at Mandriva also enforce our trademarks, BTW, though perhaps not as strictly as Red Hat.
OpenSuse has been offering two versions in the last few years. One is completely open source, the other one has additonal plugins and proprietary software such as flash, realplayer and acrobat reader.
I already made my position on the trademark issue clear on this very thread. The truth is that there are Mandrake and Suse derivatives, so it can be done. A few years back, it was true that things like Yast were not under the GPL, but today they are.
To my knowledge, OpenSuse (like any distribution) is trademarked, too.
You can’t just redistribute a modified OpenSuse and still call it OpenSuse, legally.
(correct me if I’m wrong)
For now, that is a correct statement. See http://en.opensuse.org/Legal I also e-mail Novell, no answer obviously
If 10-3 comes with K4 I will really be recommending to a couple people that they buy it, to support the great work going into this one. If not, then I will really push for them to buy 10.4/11. I personally only spend my money for buying BSD stuff, not Linux.
I’m also really waiting for SLED 11 for business customers. With the changes we’ve seen from SUSE 10 to what’s going into openSUSE 10.3 if you read the changes in depth, SLED 11 should be unbeatable! Also, I’m expecting the gripes about Vista should be much louder by then, and with Microsoft stopping all sales of copies of XP in the new year, maybe there will be a more open willingness to look at other options by the time SLED 11 comes out.
i shall be looking forward to 10.3
Hopefully 10.3 will get this awesome distribution back on track. SUSE 10.0 was one of (if not the) most polished and complete Linux distros I have ever used, and I was thoroughly impressed with it. They dropped the ball with 10.1 and 10.2, however (mostly due to ZEN and being generally buggy–at least for me, anyway).
With 10.1 package management was indeed problematic (but they released a “Remastered” version in October last year which improved very much the situation).Besides apt4rpm was still available and that was what I used.
I don’t have any problem with 10.2.
My personal problem with most linux distros has been buying an ATI X1600XT: a serious mistake that I have now corrected by buying a Geforce 7900 GT.
well, I DO have problems with software management on 10.2, tough it’s better than before. The KDE-based suse updater applet works pretty nice (pity it took me so long to figure out it did exist), but that GTK-based thing screws everything up. Not sure if they use the same backend (I guess not). I also don’t like all the mono/beagle stuff, it’s slow, even on pretty modern hardware. I’m looking forward to KDE 4 in Suse, as it won’t have to rely on beagle.
I agree about beagle. I didn’t install it, although libbeagle gets installed as a dependency (of Gnome).
SUSE is still my favorite disto and can’t wait for this release, just wish they would drop ZEN and go from something like smart or a native package manager as the default.
Zen is being dropped, or at least it won’t be enabled by default. Finally. Yast is the native package manager, and is much improved without using zmd as the backend.
Smart will continue to be available as an option, but it can’t become a default one since it lacks some of the functionality Suse requires and Yast supports.
Zen is being dropped, or at least it won’t be enabled by default. Finally. Yast is the native package manager, and is much improved without using zmd as the backend.
Yes and no– there’s one feature from ZMD/rug that I really liked, and I wish they’d port to zypper.
The package NX in 64 bit is broken. Just doesn’t work– It’s a known problem, as apparently the package isn’t 64 bit ready.
Regressing from a 64-bit package to a 32 bit package under zmd/rug was easy: “rug in NX.i586”.
Under zypper, I had to uninstall, and manually download / install the 32 bit rpm.
On the other hand, after 3 months of use, zmd had reached the point where the updater process would slam my CPU to 100% for 14 minutes every morning– Not acceptable (SuSE 10.2).
Zen is being dropped, or at least it won’t be enabled by default. Finally. Yast is the native package manager, and is much improved without using zmd as the backend.
Yay. Now if only they would take steps to rectify *cough* other mistakes *cough*.
I just switched back to OpenSUSE 10.2 from Ubuntu last night actually and I can’t wait to get my hands on 10.3. I’ve spoken to a few developers at irc.freenode.com/#opensuse-project and they’re aware that it’s difficult to get codecs, wifi, 3d working out of the box and they’re exploring solutions for 10.3 that they can legally implement for new users. SLED I believe really doesn’t have this issue, it’s just the openSUSE distro.
konvenientSUSE is a pretty cool project that achieves just that.
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/konvenientSUSE?content=433…
Very cool! Good find. I’m unfortunately using Gnome, but this is a huge help for newbies. I’m guessing it’s the equivalent of Automatix for Ubuntu?
Yes, it is. And like with automatix, there is no reason why it wouldn’t work for gnome… after all, the backends of the gnome and KDE media players are largely the same.
humm Thats weird. I am on Opensuse 10.2 for past months and not a single problem with wifi and 3d drivers (got from nvidia) and beryl is working to perfection.
codecs are no problem too (got mplayer codecs and vlc which supports all and mplayerplug-in for browser all smooth as butter).
wifi-reconnection (if router needs reboot) is PIA at the moment, so looking for to see if thats improved.
I’m planning to install 10.2 over the summer, its great as a liveDVD on my laptop, will be even better installed. Unless 10.3 is out by then 😉
I believe they are planning to deliver OpenSUSE 10.2 somewhere in September. If you want to know for sure you can have a look at opensuse.org , there’s bound to be a roadmap or release schedule on there somewhere.
just a few tips you should do when installing 10.1 or 10.2 (or disable/remove directly after installing
1) zmd
2) mono
3) beagle
those are the major pains in the system. If you disable them, you will have a very nice, responsive system.
and for the fun you can add beryl/compiz of course.
Yep, that’s what I did as well. Throw out all the overhyped Ximian stuff and strip it back to its solidly engineered Suse core.
1) I dont bother with zmd ,and smart installer (commandline and gui) is my knight in shining armor.
2) mono is cool, its not bitten me yet.
3) beagle is cool too, doesnt bother me when its indexing or maybe i dont remove/add lots of files continously
.
Beryl is MUSTTT
.
Forgive my ignorance.
I just blew the SATA controller the other day and had to rely on Live disc + USB for a week (I came to burn a LOT of Live discs, uh!!). AS I have a 10.2 installed in parallel, the 10.2 live seemed natural for me to choose for this purpose. — But well, either I couldn’t spot it or there is no way to save setting, home folder, desktop, etc.. to USB as you can do with Knoppix, for example. So this is nice as a demo and useless for anything else.
But if it is possible to do, enlighten me
I know this could be done with some 9-series live Suse, or at least you could save crucial stuff to HD.