First of all I’m on a Dell E5550 (Broadwell) with an i5-5300U, 16 GB of memory and integrated Intel HD Graphics 5500.
I have been on Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 LTS since last June and I am very annoyed with the Nautilus 3.14 version that is packaged in Ubuntu and the fact that even though it’s a LTS release updates cause problems.
Like for example this week a Xorg update even though it didn’t require a restart took control of Alt+arrow keys and Super+Keys (that I commonly use to arrange document windows) and when pressed I was kicked out of the X-Server, while in the middle of work! Also Kernel updates sometimes cause login loops and I have to make a hard shutdown with the power button (I have not opted for the Ubuntu live kernel update service).
Anyway I don’t want to bore you with the details but I just want to give you an idea about the problems I’ve encountered in Ubuntu 16.04 and why I’m looking into openSUSE Leap 42.2.
Now the main reason for me to be interested in Leap is because it has support until the latter half of 2018 and it ships with Gnome 3.20.
I am not a developer who is looking for bleeding edge packages. I am a web designer/writer who needs a reasonably stable system without it being archaic like Debian Stable or having a crazy release cycle like Fedora (I have better things to do than updating my system every 8 months).
But before I go about migrating to Leap 42.2 I would like to ask for your experiences.
Have you encountered problems with updates breaking things on openSUSE Leap? How is battery life?
From what I’ve seen Ubuntu 16.04 and Leap 42.2 share the same LTS kernel but will I see a reduction of battery life?
The problem here is that you expect answers from people that can compare the Ubuntu you use with openSUSE LEAP 42.2 (e.g. to be able to compare battery life). Those people might be scarce here.
Well, that requires somebody with exactly the same hardware as you have. Let us wait and hope.
Those things can never be guaranteed, but I am not aware of many reports here (you could search a bit yourself). Most I remind of seeing here are about Tumbleweed, not LEAP.
My experience with leap and gnome is that is rock solid, much more than kde/plasma.
I have used both for a long time and find that both desktops work well.
Gnome lacks some fuctionality in some areas, but excels in others and the same for kde/plasma.
Now i have done the opposite of what you have done and switched yesterday from leap 42.2 to ubuntu 16.04 with the unity desktop to see if unity gives more functionality than gnome but with the same stability.
Time will tell.
openSUSE has a fantastic relationship with Gnome and each considers the other first class partners,
So you should expect a solid, reliable system with rock solid functionality.
I can’t say that anyone is likely going to be able to compare battery life for each distro, but you should probably expect similar experiences… Battery life can be a complex interaction between your hardware, firmware and the software accessing. If you use the same software on the same hardware, only then <your> unique experience can be compared. I doubt that anyone else running on different hardware can compare.
That’s my experience too, rock solid as far as I stick to openSUSE defaults. I often use a separate test install to try out extra or “bleeding edge” pieces of software.
I back what tsu wrote, but about 4 hours with light load (say, browsing and editing documents…) and TLP working is my experience too, with a somewhat comparable laptop.
Watching HD videos I barely see 1h30 though…
On Sun 19 Feb 2017 11:46:01 AM CST, Operius wrote:
Now i have done the opposite of what you have done and switched
yesterday from leap 42.2 to ubuntu 16.04 with the unity desktop to see
is unity gives more functionality than gnome but with the same
stability.
Hi
What does more functionality entail for you? Interested in what’s
missing…
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE Leap 42.1|GNOME 3.16.2|4.1.36-44-default
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please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!
I think that the poster was exploring <if> there would be more functionality but I doubt that there would be any real diff.
For years now, Ubuntu has invested itself fully in developing the Unity Desktop but I doubt that any mainstream Desktop is “missing” functionality… Although maybe the same functionality might be more intuitive to find and/or use in one Desktop compared to another.
After years of switching between GNOME and KDE/Plasma i found that both have their shortcommings, but i still could use both very well, GNOME better than KDE/Plasma.
KDE/Plasma:
Dolphin, the systemtray, customizability.
clutterd interface, No exchange support for kmail, instability, clutterd settings options, bad handeling of microsoft office in crossover (resize windows).
GNOME:
Clean interface, exchange support, stable, the fast workflow of GNOME-shell, good handeling of microsoft office in crossover (resize windows), extensions.
No systemtray, some programs have header bars and some not, default white windowbar (pitch dark extension doesn’t work anymore), extensions, nautilus.
Ubuntu unity:
Dash, systemtray, taskbar, great fonts, exhange support, stable, default theme is great, menus in the topbar.
Nautilus.
Ubuntu itself as a system is not so great compared to opensuse, as far as i can see in the last few days.
Not all the software that is available in the repositories can be installed with the default softwaremangerGUI (gnome-software), some more can be installed with synaptic the ‘advanced’ software manager but also not all, steam for example.
Everything can be installed via apt-get on the commandline but it is not as easy to use as the GUI managers, and also not as easy as zypper in opensuse.
Why they have software in their repositories that cannot be found with the default softwaremanager is beyond me, very unproffesional, and not easy for less advanced linux users.
And offcourse i miss yast!
But i’m learning to work with this distro and it’s going well so far.
If it wasn’t for unity ubuntu has nothing that would make me favor it over opensuse, the opposite more likely.
Maybe only that ubuntu 16.04 is a LTS release.
Wasn’t opensuse 42.1 also ment to be a LTS release?
Oh and offcoure i know i can add all kinds of functionality to GNOME via the extensions but i wanted to see if unity is as good by default, and so far it seems to be.
Hi
OK, there is the indicator tray at bottom left and hidden, if applications use a tray icon this is where they hide… eg, pithos, hp-toolbox, qsynergy etc…
Some applications are properly ported and have all the menu items in the top bar dropdown, is this what you mean by header?
There are themes available to install?
By default some features in freetype are disabled due to patents… search the forum for the subpixel setup (or start a new thread in the technical forums)
Yes i am very familiar with all the functions of GNOME, i have used it on opensuse for years.
So i know about the ‘systemtray’ at the bottom-left.
But icons in a systemtray are there usually to provide information about a application without running it in a window to keep the desktop clean.
Like a mail or chat application that changes to notify you that there are new messages.
And they give easy acces like with the steam icon.
By hiding the icons it looses functionality.
Nautilus is not a bad file-manager at all, but dolphin is king.
Feature i miss the most in nautilus is to remember settings for each folder.
I want all files in folders in alfabetical order, but not with my download folder.
There i like the most recent file/folder to beorderd by date.
I download a lot, and looking for the last download can be a pain when the downloads are not orderd by date.
And i know there are themes.
But i can’t find a theme that pleases me at the moment with GNOME 3.20.
All i need/liked are dark titlebars, like with the extension pitch-dark. https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/957/pitch-dark/Like when i use kdenlive with a dark theme, it looke awfull with the dark interface - white titlebar and the black top-bar.
I don’t want the entire toolkit to be dark.
GNOME is great, no doubt about that, and it requires very little tweaking to set it to my liking.
But unity looks just like i want a desktop to look without tweaking.
No need to worry about extensions that might break with the next release of unity/ubuntu.
I am looking for a up to date distro with a desktop to my liking and with long term support and be done with it.
I thought 42.1 would be a LTS release but support seems to end in may.
I could have sworn that i had read somewhere that 42.1 would be supported fo 5 years.
Guess i’m getting old
Anyway, the years of experimenting with linux are over.
I have used SuSE/opensuse since 7.2 until 42.2 as my primary distro besides windows,and i have used debian/ubuntu/slackware/mandrake/libranet and red hat with GNOME/KDE/Cinnamon/Xfce/Windowmaker/Openbox and unity.
Every distro/windowmanager/desktop had it’s pro’s and con’s but now they are so mature that i am looking for the one that fits my needs best and just leave it at that for a long time.
KDE/Plasma is getting there, GNOME is getting there, but unity seems to be there now.
Seems, because i’m just using it for about 4 days.
I just installed OpenSUSE but with Xfce for now, probably I will install Plasma 5 at some point but I had bad experience in the past (with the Intel driver bug, I had tried Debian Tesing, Manjaro, OpenSUSE and KaOS and all had problems) and I avoid it. GNOME would be fine. They remove functionality but that helps them maintain the code more efficiently, I guess. Probably Ubuntu is the worst for those who want to use GNOME but for something like Xfce or MATE it’s ok. Ubuntu fonts are nice and they are included in the repos of OpenSUSE btw.
All versions of Nautilus seem annoying to me.
Zypper seems nice. I don’t like YaST’s gui much.
With Xfce I had two problems. The network-manager applet doesn’t work for now and I have to configure the fonts in Firefox and Chromium.
I don’t really like Unity it’s kind of an unholy cross between Windows 7 and a Mac.
Since I am a designer Unity’s UI is a bit of an eyesore. I’ve tested it for a week last summer and since then I haven’t looked back.
My experience with 16.04 LTS under Ubuntu Gnome is that it is a bit rough around the edges.
And from what I’ve seen at the Ubuntu forums and launchpad people who run Unity also have the same problems as me.
Sometimes updates can crash Ubuntu and a restart is the only way around it. Also the Software Center is kind of bizarre. It never asks for a restart and yet the Software Updater does ask for it. Also the useless AppPort Crash Reports are very annoying.
Right now I have a deadline and I am pretty much stuck with Ubuntu for the next two months.
But I’m testing OpenSuse Leap 42.2 with Gnome in Virtualbox during the past week. And so far this is what I have come across:
PROS
Nautilus in Gnome 3.20 is pretty good, 1-click install with Yast is nice and zypper is much better than apt since I don’t have to run the autoremove and autoclean commands every time I make an update like I do in Ubuntu.
CONS
Cannot install snap packages. Can’t get the latest version of G’MIC to work as a GIMP plugin (there is an ancient version in the stable repositories). Some software that I need (like the Hugo static site generator) is not in the repositories. (at least I can overcome this with a tarball).
Still I haven’t made up my mind if I’m going to take the Leap (pun intended). lol
But we’ll see. Also thanks for your replies. I really appreciate that you took your time to answer.
Well if you want to use GNOME i would highly reconmend opensuse 42.2!
Despite ubuntu is known to be easy for beginners, i find it harder to setup when you want something other than the default settings.
Harder, but not impossible.
And yes, I too find the softwaremanagement a bit of a mess in ubuntu.
What I liked about zypper in opensuse was that after updating the system it would let you know that you are still running out of date software that needs to be restarted before the newer version becomes active.
I don’t know how long I will use ubuntu.
I have used SuSE/opensuse for a long…long time and I have used other distros before, but I allways seem to go back to opensuse.
But not yet, because I like what i seen so far.
No distro is perfect, and I don’t mind doing some work to get things the way I like it.
The important thing is that after i’m done working it stays the way I like it, and that the distro itself is supported for a long time.
I don’t need bleeding edge, I need stable,fast,good workflow and long support.
I’m quoting myself now to clarify some things that I didn’t understood then, although it is a little off topic. With Xfce in Opensuse the fonts by default look bad. In Plasma it’s ok, even without subpixel rendering. I guess in Gnome too. OpenSUSE by default uses wicked.service in non-laptops and nm-applet and Plasma’s equivalent widget work only if the user switches to networkmanager in Yast>Network Settings. That doesn’t seem optimal to me but not that important. I also decided to use xfs for / and data and to not use Packman external repsitory and so I reinstalled. If those choices are correct is debatable.
Concerning Ubuntu apport and Ubuntu-Software-Center are among the worst software ever written.
(If someone has to use Ubuntu for some reason and is annoyed by apport now it can be disabled with
