I'm Seriously Impressed With OpenSuSE 11.4

I've heard a lot of good things about OpenSuSE 11.4 since it's release so I thought I'd give it a go. I decided to try both the live KDE and live Gnome CDs as live sessions and was very impressed with both. Before I delve into this I'll get the "conflict of interest" thing out of the way. I have been a long time XFCE (GTK) / Debian (Ubuntu / Mint) based (Apt / Synaptic .deb etc) user. I also don't like the whole Microsoft / Novell / Mono thing. So let's begin.

The first thing to note is that I did not install either of these sessions, I tried them only as live sessions. As such things like codec installs didn't work. I'd imagine they'd be fine in a proper install.

KDE

I came to Linux via PCLinuxOS 2007 with KDE 3.5, I grew to call it home. It took quite a while and a few attempts before I switched to the GTK side first with Gnome / Ubuntu, then onto my current home of XFCE. Ever since then, KDE has felt "wrong". I did like the way KDE 4 was heading and have tried a few KDE 4 distros specially recently as it's getting very polished now. I've never found one that I could live with until OpenSuSE 11.4. It's incredible.

I've found other KDE 4 distros to be buggy with various small but annoying gripes that all add up to be show stoppers. I have been (and continue to be) a vocal advocate of Linux Mint, and I'd hoped their KDE version would be the one to hit home. Sadly it's as buggy as the others I've tried. I don't follow the KDE development very closely, so the various glitches and gripes could be just things being ironed out over time rather than anything specific Mint did wrong or OpenSuSE did right. I'm going on the end product, and it's very impressive.

I'm so out of touch with KDE in terms of familiarity for where to find settings for different things, so I did want to force myself to use it for a while to learn KDE 4's wonders. I did find some of that confusing but largely down to me being unfamiliar with it. Two things that were incredibly annoying that I found in every KDE 4 distro I tried, I put down to me not being able to find the right setting to tick or untick. I'd love solutions to these in the comments from KDE people. It's worth noting that in Identica a few KDE people have tried to help me with this including Aaron Seigo himself, so as usual props go to the FOSS communities who reach out to help people.

• When trying to mount a password protected share on my NAS, it gives me a dialog box asking for the username / password for that share, which is fair enough. You enter that info, and tell it to save it, which evolves into a confusing battle of wills between you, the share and the KWallet. If that's not enough, "remembering the credentials" seems to mean "I'll give you the same dialogue box several times in a row, but pre filled with username / password" instead of "just let me in".
• When trying to open a media file on my NAS, right click and "open with VLC" or whatever player, it throws up an error about not knowing how to handle mib:// or something. The result is that no audio or video file will play from the NAS, it will play quite happily if it copies to /tmp first. At least in OpenSuSE it went ahead and copied the file, then played it, the others didn't even do that.

I did find a way around it before, which was mounting the shares the way I do now with pyNeighbourhood. I have no idea why but entering those mount points allows the audio and video files to play as I'd expect them to ie from the NAS without the need to copy them across. I have to assume this is some configuration issue that if I poked around long enough I'd find a solution to. I'd seriously love a solution to this in the comments, as it's very annoying.

The only PC I have capable of running KDE 4 is my netbook, which is very limited. The other KDE 4 distros I tried enabled the desktop effects, OpenSuSE disabled them. That might well explain why this was a noticeably better experience. Having seen videos of KDE 4 on proper PCs the visuals look stunning. I found it very slick, very polished and for the first time I could say I'd install and happily use OpenSuSE 11.4 KDE. Minor personal issues like the choice of theme and icons would be easy enough to fix. It kinda feels like KDE 4 has reached the point where it's finally living up to the potential it's shown for a while.

I did try to install it but I was wary of the unfamiliar installer in the way it was displaying my partition info on a multi-boot system. I didn't want to risk having to spend hours fixing my netbook because I'd interpreted the info wrongly, so I aborted that. I don't know if this is the OpenSuSE installer in general, or the KDE one, I didn't try the installer on Gnome.

Gnome

Being a GTK / XFCE user, I can easily sit down to a Gnome setup and feel instantly at home. Since I've been recording Linux Mint screencasts I've spent more and more time in the default Gnome Mint ships. It's very slick. I've been stunned at just how slick the OpenSuSE 11.4 Gnome is. It's awesome. There's really not a lot to choose between them.

The Slab or Mint menu is something you either like or don't, they are similar ideas done in different ways. I'm kinda used to the Mint menu although I'm not all that sure I actually like it. The Slab menu seems to have a nice and practical balance to it, even in the short time I've been playing with it, I could easily see myself getting used to it.

Compiz was enabled by default on my netbook, as I found when I went to open a terminal to run the compiz --replace command only to spot the terminal zoom onto the desktop and quiver for half a second. It does appear to be a bit heavier in resources, it was idling at around 292mb, although I've not noticed how that compares to Mint Gnome, and all the Ubuntu derivatives have gotten a little on the heavy side in the last couple of releases.

With both Mint and OpenSuSE, the whole desktop experience is very slick and polished everywhere you look. The only out of the box difference I spotted was the codecs, and as I said before, this being the live session I couldn't install them to check. Other distros do let you install in a live session, albeit the changes vanish on reboot.

Secret Sauce

The major differetiator SuSE has over other distros is it's integration with Windows networks which many of us are still forced to deal with. Not having a Windows network to try these tools on, I have no idea how easy they are to use or how efficient they are at doing what they're supposed to do. This integration is largely down to the Novell / Microsoft deal. Never having used SLED, I don't know how OpenSuSE differs either. I'd imagine it'd be more conservative in terms of latest versions of software and possibly a more bland visual design.

Conclusion

I'm looking to retool my netbook, and my new laptop when I get it as more workstation than desktop. The latest kernel is important, so is the ability to encrypt my /home partition. Ubuntu / Mint, and OpenSuSE allow you to encrypt from the installer. For 11.4 OpenSuSE have introduced Tumbleweed which turns it into a rolling release. Given there's not much to choose between the distros, something with the polish of Mint and a rolling release is a winner.

Every distro has it's quirks and flaws, sometimes they are apparent in a live session, sometimes you have to install to see them, and sometimes you don't start to see them until you've lived with the install for a while. I can only go on the live session experiences of both KDE and Gnome and could easily live with either. Aside from the NAS issues and the choice of theme which is a personal thing, I couldn't find fault with either. Well, I probably could if I tried but I'm not going to go specifically looking for reasons to be picky and critical when they don't wander across my path.

I've went from someone who tried the first OpenSuSE release after Novell bought SuSE and not being impressed through someone who has been (and continues to be) very critical of the whole Microsoft patents thing, to someone who is seriously considering installing the Gnome OpenSuSE as a main workstation. I now have an emotional stake in OpenSuSE which is something I never thought I'd say.

Leaving aside the whole Novell / Microsoft deal, judging on product alone, OpenSuSE is a wonderful distro. This is both good and bad, as it now leaves me wondering what will happen to it. Will it be consumed in the deal and left to flounder? Will it be coerced in a direction that Microsoft want to take it? Will it haemorrhage devs? Will it be split off somehow taking the majority of the devs with it? I have no idea. All I do know, is that as of right now, it's an awesome distro.

Does this mean I've softened towards Novell? Not really. I still wouldn't touch their paid SLES and SLED offerings on principle because of the Microsoft deal. Linux Mint comes with Mono and Moonlight, although I don't use any Mono apps as such, nor do I visit sites who have chosen to put content out in Microsoft's Silverlight platform. I don't feel any desire to remove Mono either, it's there but it's no biggie if it goes or not. The same applies to the apps in OpenSuSE. I've used Linux for long enough now, specially on the GTK side that I have a suite of apps that I prefer to use regardless of the distro, that's not going to change.

Whatever happens from here onwards with OpenSuSE, their achievement with 11.4 has to be congratulated. The same applies to the KDE 4 team. If it was a race to the finish line, OpenSuSE, and specially OpenSuSE with KDE 4 started a long way behind and had to go an extra long way to impress and win through.