OpenSuse 11.0 and KDE4.x have been out for about 2 months. There have been updates added to both. Can anyone comment about how stable each one is. I know that there were problems with each one, from what I found , KDE 4.x had more problems. have these, or at least the majority of these problems been cleared up?
Is is safe to install Opensuse 11.0 and KDE 4.x?
Re KDE 4, IMO the answer is very dependent on your particular setup, the particular apps you use, your individual usage model. I’ve been using 4.1.x right along, updating from the same Factory 4.1 repo at least twice a week. The base seems to be fairly stable, although occasionally there is weirdness; OO makes Plasma crazy. And while the plasmoids I set up at the start are still working, I cannot enable any new ones, including a few that worked at the start but I removed then. Kwin is working well; the compositing and integration is clean although not as many bells/whistles as Compiz. What has been most important for me at least, is that I also have 3.5.9. There are apps I use which have not yet been ported to KDE 4, and others which have which still don’t work at all. I suspect sometimes this is a migration issue, but some like ark and ksysguard have been loudly complained about but still no fix. So my bottom line, as a heavy user who can and doesn’t mind hacking, is that 4.1 is OK to use but not without 3.5.9 alongside.
Re 11.0 - Seems stable. What I have noticed though, hitting these boards as I do fairly regularly, is users having problems with the kernel and X upgrades. Too many of the same symptoms to just be coincidence; not a huge number but noticeable. E.g., the pae kernel getting installed for no apparent reason; graphics drivers getting broken. I pinned one issue down to a mismatch between the kernel driver, X, and the Mesa dri/glx drivers. So I guess you could say there are still some kinks as typical in a .0 release, but the issues I’ve seen have not been with the released sw, but the upgrades.
Anyway, fwiw, that’s what I’ve seen . . .
> Is is safe to install Opensuse 11.0 and KDE 4.x?
i quote “mingus725” who wrote the following (much better than i could
ever) on 13 Aug 2008:
“KDE 4 is still very young. It is recommended only for experienced
users who can hack their way around problems. If you have not
upgraded from the installed 4.0 to 4.1, you can try that; 4.1 is much
better. But still, it is undergoing active development and at times
things don’t work right. You would just have to see. The better bet
would be to install KDE 3.5.9; you can do that and leave KDE 4.1
installed, too. KDE 3.5.9 is very mature and stable. You could then
use 3.5.9 as your primary gui, and occasionally update your 4.1 and
check it out; when your 4.1 is stable, you can switch to it as your
primary. Many very experienced openSUSE users are sticking with 3.5.9
until 4.x has had time to mature.”
KDE 3.5.9 is not on the LiveCDs (as far as i know), but that is ok as
most folks suggest/recommend to install from the DVD…
and, most folks agree that unless you have over 2 Gigs of RAM and
are gonna have a million line database, you are not gonna see any
speed increase from using 64 bit…AND, the 32 is more stable…so,
i’d suggest you load 32 bit 11.0 from the DVD and install KDE 3.5.9
then when you need an infusion of frustration load 4.1 also…(that
is, imo, if you wanna see 4.0 get the LiveCD and LOOK at it, but do
not install it…
what are you running now? i ask, because i had some problems moving
from 10.2 to 10.3, and some of those things were fixed in 11.0 but
new probs were born…
but, now there are LOTS of fixes to 10.3 and well, you can see below
what i run
–
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315) via NNTP, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, KDE
3.5.7, SUSE Linux 10.3, 2.6.22.18-0.2-default #1 SMP i686 athlon
I am using 10.3 and have done for the last few months. I installed it about 12 weeks after it came out. I have 4GB RAM and just under 1TB HDD space. I will be moving to a different country in about 6 weeks to start a new business. I want to get 11.0 installed before I go.
From my experience, 11.0 is quite stable with KDE3.5. There have been
problems with 4.0. They may be fixed with 4.1 - others will tell you
that. I plan to stay with 3.5 for a long time.
I installed from the x86_64 DVD. I have an Nvidia GeForce Go 7150M
graphics chip that I use with the open-source frame-buffer driver. I
don’t need any 3D graphics acceleration. For me, the extra performance
of the proprietary driver is not needed, and I avoid the hassle of
building a new driver every time I change kernels, which I do
frequently when testing the latest mainline kernel. I’m currently
running 2.6.27-rc3.
Larry
I recently, last week, installed a new graphics card, nVidia 9800GTX+ 512MB DDR3. I bought it with 11.0 in mind. It is probably overkill, but since I have been using Opensuse full time, the last 2-3 years, since 10.2, I have had a bit of extra money, money that I no-longer spend on M$ or the HW needs thereof.
Then just one additional thought. Compare the nvidia driver version you currently have with what now comes with 11.0. There have been a few revision changes this year, and the SuSE updates pulls in the newest driver with a kernel update. I’ve read on the nvidia forums abt users having issues with the newest cards and recent drivers. You could of course bypass the repo version, download the version you currently have from the nvidia site and compile that. But I would check this before upgrading.
@DenverD - You are wiser than me. I should just start quoting myself and be done with it.
I actually did check the nvidai drivers after installing the new card. I ran an update using Yast then went on over to the nvidia site and checked the version I had installed with teh version they had for my card. They were the same.
My query is mainly about the stability of 11.0 and 4.x/4.x. It has been about 8 weeks. In that time there have been upgrades and patches issued for both. I was wondering if these had made a difference or should I wait an extra month or two before installing them?
Interestingly, the 4.1 “Factory Development” repo continues to have frequent and numerous updates. I had expected it would be a frozen release point; it’s not. So it’s fluid. So you would be upgrading to a 4.1 snapshot in time, which continues to change. That’s why a lot of folks are waiting to 4.2.
Any idea when 4.2 is going to be released “officially”?
What is 4.1 like with the constant updates?
Dunno. Check the roadmap.
Some things are fixed, some things get added, some new annoyances emerge. Slowly better, with occasional setbacks. Like I said before, “fluid.”
> My query is mainly about the stability of 11.0 and 4.x/4.x. It has been
> about 8 weeks. In that time there have been upgrades and patches issued
> for both. I was wondering if these had made a difference or should I
> wait an extra month or two before installing them?
answer: KDE4.1 is NOT stable with all applications working today…
it may be stable and everything works next month…or in (about)
December when 11.1 comes out…or maybe not–who knows??
if you want 11.0 before you move i’d install KDE3…HOWEVER, if i was
gonna start a new business in a new country and wanted a DEPENDABLE
machine i’d either stick with 10.3 and KDE3 OR install SLED (and
write off as a business expense that software and its professional
support) and, then i’d stop asking here for well meaning, helpful,
plentiful and cheerful but unfortunately amateur support with no way
to know if it will work out okay for you (or your company), or not…
but, if you keep asking you WILL get someone to answer that KDE4.1 on
v 11.0 is as stable as anyone could ever need…so, keep asking at
your own risk…
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315) via NNTP, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, KDE
3.5.7, SUSE Linux 10.3, 2.6.22.18-0.2-default #1 SMP i686 athlon
Good answer. Thank you. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
For silkmze, reference DenverD’s comments, … I also recommend installing from the DVD. But with my having typed that, one of the openSUSE community users has created a liveCD with KDE-3.5.9 and openSUSE-11.0. I have been seeding the openSUSE-11.0 KDE-3.5.9 liveCD for over a week. The KDE-3.5.9 live CD works well and you can read about it here:
Carlos Gonçalves: openSUSE 11.0 KDE3 Live CDst
silkmaze, if you wish to get a flavour as to what 4.1 is like, then try out this liveCD of 4.1:
“KDE Four Live” CD](http://home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/)
Reference openSUSE-11.1, I installed the alpha2 version of 11.1 (with KDE-3.5.9 desktop) yesterday. Since 11.0 also comes with 3.5.9 (and I do not think 3.5.10 has been released yet, although it will be soon) the 11.1 implementation of pretty much the same 3.5.9 version of KDE (in 11.0) was pretty solid. So solid, that from a tester’s perspective, it is very boring (ie it is too stable), and I’ll likely re-install 11.1 alpha2 to test the KDE-4.1 implementation in openSUSE-11.1 alpha2. I’m assuming KDE-4.1 in openSUSE-11.1 alpha2 should provide some testing fun (ie have various hiccups).
Given the advances that are being made with KDE4, I would not be surprised (and this is IMHO) that openSUSE-11.1 may be the last openSUSE with KDE-3.5 as a top level selectable install desktop option. Its possible (again IMHO) that openSUSE-11.2 (due late next year) will not have KDE3 as a top level installation option, and indeed KDE3 may not even be available in 11.2 as a selectable pattern. (again, my speculation).
Also, while I do not recommend the preliminary openSUSE-11.0 KDE4 implementation, it does appear now (to me) that KDE4 is now starting to come in its own, and it should be fairly solid in openSUSE-11.1. I’ll even predict (again IMHO) that KDE4 will be very polished and stable in 11.2 (next year), with on average more features than the older KDE3.
oldcpu wrote:
> DenverD;1861498 Wrote:
>> KDE 3.5.9 is not on the LiveCDs (as far as i know),
> For silkmze, reference DenverD’s comments, … one of the
> openSUSE community users has created a liveCD with KDE-3.5.9 and
> openSUSE-11.0.
RIGHT…i had forgotten that…good catch…
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see caveat: http://tinyurl.com/6aagco
DenverD (Linux Counter 282315) via NNTP, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, KDE
3.5.7, SUSE Linux 10.3, 2.6.22.18-0.2-default #1 SMP i686 athlon