New in linux, even newer in OpenSUSE (story of my life and stuff)

English Soapbox
1

Hi all…!

I work as a QA Analyst at some random software company, I have been always a software enthusiast and loved breaking my system once a week. Then I meet linux, the hundred distrbutions, and I was astonished… It was a new world for me, I had new stuff to experiment. So I started with ubuntu and liked it, then I investigated a little bit and felt I was on the n00b side, so I went into archLinux. Of course I failed at installing it, but once I tried for the eleventh time (of course, having lost all my partitions and stuff, but I didnt care honestly) I felt like a super pro. Started to learn the terminal commands, the customization, and stuff. Loved it for a good while once my distro was alive and running.

Then I got attacked by the “Why bother that much to install a simple chat software” and the “**** I want to play need for speed” so I went back to windows for another while. Now, I am back for more action and blood and destruction (of partitions). To admit, I was really never comfortable with Ubuntu but neither with the headaches from archLinux. In fact, all I wanted was to stop wasting so much time in Gaming, but neither I wanted to wast many hours of my life installing a distro and customizing it. So went back into Ubuntu, this time it was Unity, it was so slow and overwhelming I couldnt resist. So then I installed gnome 3, but it wasn’t that well polished with Ubuntu, couldn’t make some stuff to work and it was somehow unstable… So, installed two VMS, one with Fedora and the other one was Suse. Tried Fedora and I felt restricted too much, so I was in the middle of nowhere, with an unstable ubunty-gnome3 setup and a fedora on a VM that didn’t convince my likings (even considered it was packed with gnome3, which somehow I liked since it was cute, but still too overwhelming, and with unnecessary stuff on the screen).

So, without even going through opensuse in the VM, i installed directly on my desktop’s main boot. I had a split screen, the resolution wasn’t correct and the effects were all disabled. So I was stuck again… until I installed my ati drivers. I was really impressed when I got into the wiki and I found that one-click installation. Wow that was something new. Afterwards, a new world started. This was packed with KDE which I never tried before, everything seemed to work like I expected it to be. YaST is incredible, it has all linux customization stuff integrated into a GUI, and even when I clicked a checkbox it didn’t crash!.. Then I installed my own liking software (Clementine, thunderbird and chrome) and amazing! Clementine integrated automatically into the taskbar, the notification and jobs thingy automatically popped up my new thunderbird emails (without me doing anything about it!) and could even import a CVPN file without much hassle. Dropbox integrated with nautilus, and I could go on. I simply can’t find any flaws.

Too bad for me as a User not being able to tell which of all-good-things corresponds to OpenSUSE and which to KDE, but coming to think of it, its an amazing thing to think! Because it means both the Desktop environment and the Linux distribution merge into the** same-freaking-thing, **and it’s simply incredible!

Thanks for being my new main os! and sorry for my poor english, as it is not my main language.
JV

2

Welcome JeansenVaars to the openSUSE forum. If you have need for our assistance, you only need to ask for it. I have a bunch of bash scripts you should have a look at or download them all based on this one blog. Some are for nVIDIA, not ATI, but they are not used but only if you run them for some reason.

Have a look here: openSUSE 12.3 Bash Script Download Bonanza! with Bash Script Loader - Blogs - openSUSE Forums

Thank You,

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Did you really use GNOME 3.X. It has practically nothing on screen.It has got to be most underwhelming and plain desktop ever :slight_smile:
Welcome to openSUSE !

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Of course it is all relative to the eye :slight_smile: but yes I used it a while, and I like it far more than unity, since its symmetric, plain and simple. I really like the overall window management, and specially the ability to close windows right from the activities menu, being like a summary of all currently open activities. Switching between desktop is nice too, and well organized.

But the fact of having a full screen activity window, makes what I describe as overwhelming, if I want to run a new program I need to full-screen-override-my-current-view of the rest of the windows. I know it is for a while, it lasts until I open that new program. But what happens if I am looking for a file at the same time I am reading the file name from a spreadsheet? It is all relative depending on the sort of use each one of us gives it.

On the other hand, KDE is less intruding and currently, is more stable and better compatible with a wider of application lists, specially considering the taskbar icons. But that could depend on the distro adaptation, being everything a good balance of the two. Thats what I found in openSuse KDE edition.

Plus I find the calendar and other widgets really fitting, useful and comfortable to use, being on the other hand, the gnome-tweak-tools and the gnome-extensions more restrictive and probably less in number.

Personally, didnt have luck with AMD Drivers + Compiz, on the other hand the openGL effects I enabled in KDE seem to go smoothly. Additionaly, I have had some issues with the taskbar icons, they are all white (for example the dropbox icon) once I change the default theme colors. KDE manages the collor contrast of icons and theme colors better, imo.

Finally, some minor flash player issues and web browsing performance have been solved, though that sounds more openSuse related than about the KDE thing.

There IS a bad thing, and that is that I like more the Gnome default keyboard shortcuts than KDE. It is customizable I know, but there IS a limitation. I cannot change keyboard layout just as Windows (Alt + Shift), I need to press an additional keyboard button (Now I have it as Alt + Shift + Z). Also, I cannot popup the program launcher with just (WinD) button, I guess I am obliged to use ALT+F2 for now
Hope I have given a valid argument, still its all about tastes, and tastes may change upon time and necessity :slight_smile:

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open quick launch window Alt+F2 ==> run “gnome-tweak-tool” . Under “Shell” tab==>"Arrangement of buttons …’’ dropdown you can restore “maximize,minimize,restore” buttons on all windows.
If you want a task switcher at the bottom try https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/3/bottom-panel/

6

haha yes, those both things are stuff I did, but maybe I explained myself poorly.

I was talking about having the “activities” menu as a full screen, each time you wanted to look for programs you had to deal with a full screen
http://www.gnome.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/gnome-3-8.png

In any case, i could have installed cinnamon or mate, at the end it is all being about customization in linux.

But the most important fact is the app-compatibility.

For example in Gnome3, if you right click firefox or chrome over the left bar, the options “Open a new incognito tab” would not appear. Other cases are for example, right clicking on Rhythmbox or Clementine in the below bar (the one hidden by default that appears after a 1second delay down there). At the moment you right-click them, the bar dissappears, leaving the right click popup flying around. If you click the volume icon on the top bar (near the clock), you wouldnt get the quick-access play-pause-next-preview-currentlyplaying buttons associated to the media player currently playing.

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i use this and it does do what you specify.I even shows coverart
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/55/media-player-indicator/

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Welcome to openSUSE!
I have been a linux user for about 8 years now (okay technically its 10 years but I always count my first full year as 2005) and still loving it over windows by a long shot.
I have seen a lot of what linux can offer and have used countless distros
Mostly I stick with simpler ones like openSUSE, *buntu (though I did dabble in debian, say that five times fast! :D) so I say you are in good hands.
Though why you chse Gnome as your default is beyond me, I hate gnome 3 with a passion and think its developers are a bunch of loony numskulls but thats just my opinion :smiley:

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he/she seems to be using KDE

Wow that was something new. Afterwards, a new world started. This was packed with KDE which I never tried before, everything seemed to work like I expected it to be. YaST is incredible, it has all linux customization stuff integrated into a GUI, and even when I clicked a checkbox it didn’t crash!.. Then I installed my own liking software (Clementine, thunderbird and chrome) and amazing! Clementine integrated automatically into the taskbar, the notification and jobs thingy automatically popped up my new thunderbird emails (without me doing anything about it!) and could even import a CVPN file without much hassle. Dropbox integrated with nautilus, and I could go on. I simply can’t find any flaws.

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I mean why they start with KDE :smiley:

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Perhaps the similarity to the Windows they’re used to, that was so in my case.

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No I meant why didnt they use KDE in the first place, sorry i meant to edit.

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Great to have you, are you using a combination of kde and gnome?

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Yes, im currently using KDE. Been using Gnome before though, but OpenSUSE + KDE4 is solid and polished like no other os-distro

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/4792/snapshot1sn.png

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On Sat, 18 May 2013 00:36:01 GMT, JeansenVaars
<JeansenVaars@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
>Too bad for me as a User not being able to tell which of
>all-good-things corresponds to OpenSUSE and which to KDE, but coming to
>think of it, its an amazing thing to think! Because it means both the
>Desktop environment and the Linux distribution merge into the*
>same-freaking-thing, *and it’s simply incredible!

Well wow, thank you. Yast is particular to openSuse and most the rest is
KDE.
>
>Thanks for being my new main os! and sorry for my poor english, as it
>is not my main language.
>JV
>
Do not apologize for your English, just warn that it is not your native
language. I know way too many college educated native English speakers
that do not do as well as you.

?-)

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On 05/25/2013 11:27 AM, josephkk wrote:
> I know way too many college educated native English speakers
> that do not do as well as you.

o wright!!

–
dd

17

One thing I notice from the screenie is that you are smart enough to use Clementine instead of the default. So that is a +1 from me, if that matters to you.

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A bit late, but welcome !!