Anurag Bhandari | Review: openSuSE 10.3

Review: openSuSE 10.3

This is the best SuSE release till now, but still a bit short of being called the best.

Although I wasn't the first one to download the latest version of openSuSE, I was still one of the first to do so, believe me. SuSE was the first Linux distribution that I used to fix my roots in the Linux world. So, I've an attachment with this flavor of Linux in particular. But I won't be partial in this review, not even a bit. I'll present my review on Novell's openSuSE 10.3 in an easy-to-understand manner, that is, topic-wise:

Getting openSuSE

This much-awaited version of SuSE has come out after almost a year's gap. This time, Novell released openSuSE in both the CD and the DVD forms. I downloaded the full DVD version. You can download it right now or place an order to buy it on DVD. Visit the official website

Installation

Although I had the version 10.2 already installed on my hard disk, I decided to format that partition and perform a fresh install of 10.3, instead of upgrading the previous version. As always, the installation went fine, without a hitch. openSuSE has been using YaST as the GUI installer for SuSE and openSuSE 10.3 is no exception in that it also uses YaST. YaST is the single piece of software which could be well enough to make a person completely migrate from Windows to Linux.

While installing, YaST made sure that the installation was super easy. The whole installation procedure was almost the same as it was in the preceding versions of openSuSE 10.x series.

My first login

It took approximately 30-35 minutes for openSuSE to install on my PC. I was eager to restart my computer and log into my newly installed openSuSE and check out what has been changed since the previous version. Firstly, it was nice to find the graphics of the new version been completely changed to a green theme, rather than the blue one in the previous iteration. Secondly, I couldn't find much major changes in this version. Everything was almost the same, except for updated graphics, Compiz Fusion, more stable system, pre-installed support for music (audio) playback, updated packages (softwares), an updated Linux kernel, and the famous One-Click-Install system.

Every default setting was pleasing, be it the wallpaper, the icon theme, the GRUB Splash theme, bootsplash theme, and the rest of it. So, the first impression of 10.3 on me was quite good.

Multimedia

This is one of the areas I look at first in every Linux distro I try. And sadly, openSuSE 10.3 still lags behind in what is called the out-of-the-box multimedia support. I expected it to play every format I would throw at it, but it would play just the usual MP3s, WAVs, WMAs, and other audio stuff. I couldn't play a single video file in OS10.3. Instead, I got this message when a video file was clicked upon:

Nevertheless, the multimedia experience was not below expectations, as it was in 10.2 in which I wasn't able to play even the audio with the default codecs installed.

The Menu system

The all new menu system, called Kickoff has been a nice feature in openSuSE since 10.2. Navigation in this menu is quite easy and if it is not in your case, then it wouldn't take much time for you to get accustomed to it.

Package Manager (installing extra software)

This has been a serious issue in openSuSE from the very beginning. Installing extra software through YaST is a messy affair unless you are using your DVD to install extra packages. But if you opt to install softwares from the openSuSE repository, like we do in Ubuntu, Mandriva, PCLOS, etc., then that gets seriously effort full. You got to have a lot of patience for letting YaST to startup if you have added the openSuSE repository as a package installation source in YaST settings. In my case, YaST seemed to be downloading information (RPM XML metadata) for virtually every package group available in the repo every time I started the package manager. For the first time, I waited for 15 mins or so, but later realized that I don't afford that much time to wait for every info package to get downloaded. So, I dropped the idea altogether of installing softwares through repos. Instead, I opted to install them through source compilation or through the available RPM packages. And here I am with the latest xine plugins compiled and installed, and every video file working like anything.

Central Control Center

As I earlier said, YaST is a powerful feature of openSuSE. YaST also serves as the central control center for the whole system. It is much powerful than its counterparts in Mandriva and Windows XP. Is there a need to say some more for YaST?

Desktop Environments

I installed three DEs: KDE (my favorite), GNOME and XFCE. The implementation of all these DEs in OS10.3 is good, especially in the big two, GNOME & KDE.

Easter Eggs

On booting the installation DVD for the first time, I got to see a mesmerizing GRUB splash image. As I was admiring the beauty of the green screen by just watching it, I saw a faint and transparent Geeko (the SuSE mascot) image appear and dissolve on the entire screen. This didn't happen the next time I booted.

I'll report more of these Easter Eggs, if I find some.

Conclusion and Rating

All in all, openSuSE 10.3 is a great Linux distro for those wanting every kind of software in Linux. It is a blend of incredible graphics, a stable OS, and an upto date system.

I give it a rating of 8 out of 10.

Posted under category Review
by Anurag Bhandari on Friday, November 2, 2007, 8:28 am