Can I run OpenSUSE on this old hardware

Hello,
I’m considering replacing my Ubuntu MATE with OpenSUSE, but I’m not sure if my hardware is capable to run it properly.

I have dual boot with Windows 10, but Linux is my main OS. I use it for web browsing, skype, etc. normal OS stuff, Gimp, HTML/CSS/Javascript coding with Sublime Text and some video editing with Kdenlive.

This is the hardware:

-BIOS-
Date : 01/30/2007
Vendor : American Megatrends Inc. (www.ami.com)
Version : 1102

-Board-
Name : P5B
Vendor : ASUSTeK Computer INC. (SEAGATE, www.seagate.com)

-Computer-
Processor : 2x Intel(R) Core™2 CPU 6320 @ 1.86GHz
Memory : 2048MB (1187MB used)
Operating System : Ubuntu MATE 15.04 (x64)

-Display-
Resolution : 1280x1024 pixels
OpenGL Renderer : Unknown
X11 Vendor : The X.Org Foundation

-Multimedia-
Audio Adapter : HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
Audio Adapter : HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
Audio Adapter : USB-Audio - USB MIDI Interface

-SCSI Disks-
ATA ST3160815AS
ATA ST3250410AS
ASUS DRW-1814BL

Video card:
NVIDIA GeForce 210

Firstly I used Ubuntu 14.04 and 15.04, in both versions I got system hangs/crashes on the login screen (with both NVIDIA binary driver v340.93 or Nouveau driver), then I removed all those login prompts in the system and the problem was gone. Since couple of days I’m on Ubuntu MATE 15.04 and it looks okay so far, no bugs at all (some applets unsettled in the main panel 1-2 times, that’s all).

Yes, I know this machine is old and I cannot expect amazing performance. All I want is to run OpenSUSE 13.2 without experiencing hardcore bugs and system crashes, do you think that’s possible?

Thanks in advance!

Yes 13.2 should run ok.

There are liveDVDs for 13.2 and you can also test such with a liveDVD (albeit it will run like molasses from a liveDVD - and that will NOT be representative of its speed when runing from the harddrive).

wrt the Graphics, my wife’s PC uses a NVIDIA GeForce 210 - and it works fine with the nouveau driver (albeit her graphic demands are very minor).

I have run OpenSUSE through 13.2 and recent Tumbleweed on similar HW (but with GM965 Intel graphics) and daily work was OK.
Not sure about video editing though…
The real bottleneck was the disk (120GB 5400rpm); even a small SSD makes a real difference here.
Two caveats:

  1. if your disk still has the 512 byte 63 sector format, don’t use the default BTRFS filesystem: the 13.2 DVD installer has problems storing the bootloader code in such a small bootloader record.
    Using EXT4 everything should be OK (including less disk space needed for a standard install).
    Otherwise, keep a rescue disk on hand since your system might be unbootable on first boot; then update the system as soon as possible.
  2. Unless you are in a hurry, you may wait for the upcoming LEAP 42.1 release that is just a couple of weeks away…

Welcome onboard!

Thank you for replies!

Installed OpenSUSE 13.2 KDE yesterday (I guess it’s KDE 4 by default) and I really like it. Performance is, surprisingly, good; not as fast as MATE, but I can’t complain at all. Not a single bug or crash till now.

OrsoBruno, excuse me, I’m a complete n00b and I don’t get all that technical info. I don’t even know the difference between OpenSUSE versions - 13.1, 13.2, LEAP, Harlequin… All I knew was how to install the distro without ruining all other partitions and Windows…

Regards!

Tsvetanov, welcome to openSUSE and welcome to our forum.

openSUSE has been evolving the past few years … and some explanations.

Up until openSUSE-13.2 (which is the current released openSUSE, at least it will be for the next 2 weeks) the general development had been a new openSUSE release every 9 to 12 months, the latest version being openSUSE-13.2. My understanding is the older openSUSE (up to 13.2) is nominally packaged by SuSE-GmbH in Nurmberg with support from the openSUSE community. The typical practise for maintenance of openSUSE was that security fixes would be immediately addressed with updates, and major/blocking bugs would be immediately addressed with updates, but very minor bugs and new features were not updated in a release. Instead for minor bug fixes and for new features, one had to wait for the next openSUSE release.

Further, in addition to packaging openSUSE, SuSE-GmbH packaged two ‘commericial’ GNU/Linux distributions similar to openSUSE, which are SUSE-Linux-Enterprise (desktop version and a server version). These are often referred to as SLE (SUSE Linux Enterprise). The desktop version is often called SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) and the server version called SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server). Both SLED and SLES are supported by a different forum and not our forum. SLED and SLES have longer maintenance life provided by SuSE-GmbH than an openSUSE version has maintenance life (up to v.13.2 of openSUSE). However SLED and SLES tend to be a bit older wrt the date of the underlying OS and older wrt their applications.

In parallel, in response to a community desire to have more up to date openSUSE versions (that were still stable) with feature enhancements, and not have to wait for the next openSUSE version, a new packaged version of openSUSE called ‘Tumbleweed’ evolved. Tumbleweed is what is known as a ‘rolling release’ and as there are new versions of applications, and indeed new underlying core operating system versions, once they reach a reasonable level of maturity they are applied to the “Tumbleweed” openSUSE version. A large % of the Tumbleweed packaging is done by the openSUSE community, although again my understanding is SuSE-GmbH provide significant core support for “Tumbleweed”. Tumbleweed was typically based on the last openSUSE version, but with enhancements.

Hence for a while there was the ‘nominal openSUSE (such as 13.2)’, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and also there was SLED and SLES. But this has now changed.

A decision was reached to bring ‘openSUSE’ closer to ‘SLE’ so to gain synergy from the two parallel efforts. Thus the new version of openSUSE, to come out in a few weeks time, will be openSUSE LEAP v.42.1 . They chose a new version numbering, as the change from the older SLE/openSUSE to this combined variant for the new openSUSE, is a significant change. The idea is to use the core very stable SLE packages for the core openSUSE LEAP Operating System, and use the community packaged applications for many of the openSUSE LEAP applications. Hence openSUSE LEAP and SLE will be much closer in terms of compatibility of applications which has significant synergy and increased maintenance life possible for openSUSE LEAP.

At the same time, Tumbleweed will continue.

Hence from early November onward, there will be openSUSE (LEAP version and Tumbleweed version), and SLE (SLED and SLES versions). On our forum we plan to support wrt help (from our many volunteers) both LEAP and Tumbleweed (but not SLED nor SLES).

At least that is my understanding and I hope that clarifies this for you.

Excelent explanation as far as I can see.

I may add that “nicknames” as Harlequin are added to many openSUSE versions (as they are added to many products with version numbers worldwide). They seem to cater for people that like it to talk more intimate about auch a version (maybe finding a version number to abstract). IMHO they only add confusion. :wink:

To see what you have use:

cat /etc/os-release

It will show you all the naming mutations of the operating system and it’s version and should not only function on openSUSE, but on Linux in general.

Great tutorial! Thank you very much for your time!

Do you know if LEAP 42.1 will demand higher system requirements than 13.2?

I installed the Beta Gnome version on my test box (similar to yours…) and it doesn’t seem to require more, at least with everyday jobs.

Thank you all.

Solved.

Yesterday I Installed Leap 42.1 KDE, then installed the NVIDIA proprietary driver and everything looked good, but now suddenly all the KDE effects disappeared. Windows’ drop shadows are all gone, animations too, no transparency on active window, cyrillic and latin fonts look totally different and so on… and things look quite ugly. I didn’t do anything with the GUI settings, just rebooted the PC and then the GUI got damaged.

Can I solve this somehow?

http://i63.tinypic.com/2d2gcih.png

False alarm, I suppose. In System Settings > Display > Compositor there was some crash message for OpenGL, I recovered it (there was a button for that) and the GUI went back to normal.

Excuse me for misunderstanding.