EOS vs openSuse Leap vs openSuse TW

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Hi,

I have been running Manjaro and later EOS for many years on my computers, with no issues mostly. The main reason was the availability of Software in the AUR. That said, openSUSE Leap was my first ever Linux distro I used for several years, after a short stop at Kubuntu, until I left for Arch.

Now, I got a work computer… an old ThinkCentre, with an i5 and an on board Intel graphics chip… So now I am wondering, which OS to put on it. I am considering EOS, TW and Leap… Which would you recommend? My concern is the age of the system. While I would love TW or EOS, I am not sure if the hardware is recent enough for a rolling release.

The other thing is, that I have seen people complaining about issues with YaST dependencies, causing problems with installing and removing systems, such as dependency loops, etc.

That said, I am looking for some ideas and recommendations. For now the system is running on EOS and it works nicely… I had an ISO image laying around, which I used… but I am willing to change to a more reliable or stable OS, providing long term compatibility.

System has 8 GB of RAM and is mainly used for work… text documents, excel sheets, browser related work (Google Docs), Chat, and stuff like YouTube and Spotify. I am an advanced Linux user, knowing my way around the OS and the CLI. However, I have no time or interest in hour long troubleshooting and reinstalling of the OS. I need it to work after set up and able to be left alone.

I am using KDE Plasma and I would prefer staying on Plasma 6, though I have no issues with KDE Plasma 5 on my laptop either…

Thanks in advance for any help and advice…

Cheers

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Never used EOS, so cannot comment on that, but I routinely use TW on a 9 yr old laptop and have even a 2007 backup box with Leap 15.6 KDE, so I do not see any stumbling block with your HW.
If you prefer “leaving it alone” maybe Leap is best. TW is pretty reliable (if you don’t do “stupid things” with your system) but has the occasional glitch that may take a few days to fix. Of course using btrfs, snapper and snapshots may save your day in such cases, but Leap is smoother if you don’t do dev work and don’t need bleeding edge versions of packages.
Be aware that btrfs doesn’t work well with slow rotating rust, so use an SSD disk if you go that way.

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For stable work with very few update problems (if any), I’d certainly use Leap. All my machines run it, set to update once a week. To change it they’ll have to pry Leap from my dead hands! :wink:

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Thanks for the reply. I would love to go back to openSUSE. Encouraging to known that both TW and Leap work fine… I know Leap is great on my laptop and it was what I used for several years in 2014 to 2018. Just wasn’t sure on TW. I do dev work occasionally, mainly Java and HTML / CSS / JavaScript. But only on occasions, using JetBrains IDEs. Forgot to mention that.

Maybe also be worth mentioning, I do some light gaming but mostly DosBox and Lutris stuff… nothing too heavy or graphic intense.

As for the SSD, I have one. I guess the only choice left to made it whether I put TW on it or Leap.

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My main concern is the fairly old hardware and stability. Since I don’t do heavy gaming, I probably don’t need bleeding-edge software but rather something that works nice with browsers, my IDEs and the few games I play (Stellaris, DOS Games, Strategy Games like Panzer Corps, only a handful really.

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I use Steam on Leap (KDE, RTX 2060), no issues except small fonts on 4K monitors, but there is a workaround for that (go into big mode picture then go back to normal).
One advantage I see is the size/frequency of updates, much smaller than TW.
For windows-only games I have a dual boot desktop.

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That would be another thing… My internet often is terrible… especially during early evening / late afternoon. Smaller updates and less updates would be more convenient. My laptop rarely updates and usually, it’s just 2 or 3 packages, EOS pretty much updates daily and often packages go into 50 to 100+.

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I have multiple i5s, with about 10 years between oldest and newest. Each has TW, Slowroll, 15.5 and 15.6, among other distros. Intel has been providing integrated graphics since well over two decades ago, i5s since well over one decade ago, so we don’t really have any idea about the capabilities of your particular ThinkCentre other than it was a mid-line product, between i7 or better, and i3 or lesser. If you can boot some live Linux media, inxi, lshw, hwinfo, neofetch or other Linux tools can provide useful data to better describe what you have, somewhat like the original specs for whatever that ThinkCenter model is.

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Talk about old, Until last month I was running Leap 15.6/KDE on a 10-year old D1800M mobo - dual core Intel J1800 CPU and a GT 710 GPU (the onboard intel graphics died last year) and 8GB RAM. No issues, except being a bit slow mostly due to the 2.41 GHz CPU.
It worked fine for backup purposes using syncthing.
So I think perhaps you could be happy with Leap/KDE, just dial down a bit on bling.

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bbuske@BuskeIT-PC
OS: EndeavourOS Linux x86_64
Host: 10GT002SUS ThinkCentre M700
Kernel: 6.12.1-zen1-1-zen
Uptime: 7 days, 7 hours, 7 mins
Packages: 1580 (pacman)
Shell: bash 5.2.37
Resolution: 1600x900
DE: Plasma 6.2.4
WM: kwin
Theme: Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
Icons: breeze-dark [GTK2/3]
Terminal: konsole
CPU: Intel i5-6400 (4) @ 3.300GHz
GPU: Intel HD Graphics
Memory: 6638MiB / 7847MiB

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Yeah, that’s what my common sense tells me too… Leap… as it works fine on my laptop… but the Arch / EOS user in me is attracted by TW haha I guess you could still update just once in a while, but the updates will be huge…

Does Leap work fine with OBS and common Software? Softmaker Office, Skype, Browser, Discord, Slack, JetBrains IntelliJ and CLion and stuff like that?

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I did install Leap at the end, however, some packages were too old, so I checked Slowroll, but it seems to be still experimental and not recommended with 3rd Party Repos. So I went and upgraded my Leap to Tumbleweed for now, possibly moving to Slowroll later. For now I am fine though and everything works as it should…

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Hi. First of all I would recommend you to always use main distributions, not derived from other distributions. On this premise, if you want a rolling distribution my advice is to always have snapper or timeshift support enabled and configured. Consequently, either you do it yourself in Arch or you use Tumbleweed and delegate that function to experts in the field. I use Tumbleweed because it is rolling, it allows me to enjoy the latest versions with the peace of mind of having snapper enabled and configured by default by developers who know much more than me about it. With Tumbleweed you will get a rolling distribution+snapper+openQA (automatic test before updates)+Yast (the only control panel I know in Linux).

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Hi, thanks for the reply.

EOS ist the same as Arch… just easier to install… but like I said, I am on Tumbleweed for now. It works fine. I would personally love Slowroll, as it provides somewhat a balance between Leap and Tumblewee, but it is still too experimental for me.

For now so, I will just stick with TW and use Snapper before updates.

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The same here, I couldn’t agree more.
From what I read here on the this forum, I wouldn’t touch TW with a ten foot pole…
Ignore the N=1 cases where they tell you “I have been using TW for years wihout problems”.

When I need more up to date packages I use additional repo’s, for example, to get the latest Firefox on Leap, you can add the repo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_Leap_15.6/
And there are more repo’s like that with up to date software packages for Leap, have a look here: https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/

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Hi @bbuske
I have been using Slowroll since September '23 and it has never given me major problems, despite being very inexperienced. I have a very old laptop (16 years) and various other virtualbox vm and it has always given me good feedback. It has much fewer updates than TW. Leap is still very good but on my laptop it is a bit heavier with desktops in both with Xfce. I guess the difference is made by the kernel.
Hi
Happy Holidays!