Have used Ubuntu, Manjaro and Fedora very breafly and my first OS was actually SUSE years ago, again vey very briefly used it and stiuk to my mind allot since it had the most memorable logo, nonetheless after years of using Windows I have become quite dissatisfied with it as a beginner programmer, it just doesnt compare to the ease Linux affords me. some linux distros are planning major releases in the coming weeks or days and I think it couldnt be a better time to make the switch and my questions to the community is :
I am looking for a good Linux OS for my laptop with Linux something between Arch Linux ( gives you a good understand on how linux works, not dumbed down so to speak ) and Ubuntu ( too consumer targeted and centralized ), I want to be proficient in linux enough to be comfortable in any distro desktop or server without relying too much on GUI, truly learn how linux as much as I can as I go). Fedora was nice but the 6 months update thing has me scared and Manjaro devs have me worried on how they handle some things .
My preferred edition is tumbleweed since it has the latest stuff and what I know about tech is a new version, program and bug is fixed everyday but I also want stability of knowing may I choose it I can use it for at the very minimum 3 years without any system breaking issues or lost work, as a developer what would you recommend, Leap or Tumbeweed, if I say went with TumbleWeed will the btrfs system help me rollback changes might I ever run into problems.
Lastly (for now) as a novice I am sure I will be frequently on the forums asking for help and so forth but reading the other forums and so forth its said that OpenSUSE has a rather smaller community compared to Ubuntu’s and Fedora/Centos, be honest how beginner friendly is the community ?
Granted most of said posts were from 2008 - 2015.
To be honest, how enlightening will it be when you ask openSUSE users if openSUSE is the right choice? Do you really think that the openSUSE users here will admit that they made the wrong choise, but still did not switch to something different rotfl!
That said, we, openSUSE users active on the forums try to help users, new or veterans, as good as possible. From your side we expect that you describe your problem as good and exact as possible (with computer facts added). This is because we are sorry to admit that we are not clairvoyant.
That said, it depends very much on your wishes and your use case on what operating system is best. E.g., when you use the system for your daily work like browsing, mailing administration, etc. IMHO you want a stable, not changing system. In fact my opinion is that I do not want the system changing ever and i hate it to move to the next version because else I loose (security) support. Thus you will probably understand that I go for Leap and not for TW. But that is completely up to you. Everybody has her/his own view of how the world should run.
I am agree with @hcvv but I would like to add few things:
I am a former ArchLinux and Fedora user. I do not think that I will come back. (I do not want to say “never” because I use that word few times in my life and I was wrong).
I use TW. Not big problems at all. And the small problems that appear are solving very quickly.
Community: maybe not so big like Fedora/Centos and Ubuntu, like you said. But from my point of view, I do need more than this community offers me (I did not want to say that it is one of the best community because I would be subjective). There was no situation in which I would not receive help.
I think that the answer is: try openSUSE for a while and convince yourself. In any way it will be an experience that will help you.
All in all, it’s a matter of personal taste. That said, I’ve been running Tumbleweed for years now, no show breakers on my systems ( currently laptop, VPS, Rpi3 ). Both Leap and Tumbleweed are openqa tested, i.e. on updates, the whole distro gets tested again as a whole, f.e. will the updated Firefox start on KDE, GNOME, Xfce etc. .
IMHO Tumbleweed has it’s advantages for developpers: close to upstream projects, many languages/tools in the distribution repos.
I don’t know what you’re developping, but you could also consider using the Open Build Service: build.opensuse.org, you can use the credentials you use here.
openSUSE has a great many things to make life easier for you than other distros.
Perhaps the first thing a brand new User to openSUSE should do is find and open YaST from the application launch menu.
Unique to openSUSE, YaST is somewhat similar to the MSWindows Control Panel or Settings, but on steroids. Unlike the rather limited things in MSWindows, Yast is where you’ll find graphical tools to do a great many things if you prefer not to use a command line console. As time goes on, you may find that doing some things by command line is faster or with more options but in the beginning and perhaps throughout your openSUSE experience, you will find tools that make many tasks easier than in other distros, and do those tasks consistently with fewer errors.
And, openSUSE can be a great platform to do a great many things.
If you prefer to develop in a particular language though, I recommend you search these Forums for posts by others describing what they did to install enhanced packages for that language and any tools you wish to use.
Of course if you have any other questions, just post…
Yes, absolutely – openSUSE is the right choice – for me. Whether it is the right choice for you, only you can decide that. But give it a try and find out for yourself.
In my, no so humble, opinion, I think that openSUSE is the best distribution of Linux, and these are my reasons why.
Leap:
Very stable
Enterprise hardened kernel
lots of packages
Tumbleweed
Very stable and should something go not so well, you can roll back the installation
Latest software that is tested well with the automated openQA system
After every update, it feels like a fresh, new-car smell system.
openSUSE Ecosystem:
Super friendly community, there are no “personalities” that give you a bitter taste. Solutions seem to quickly become available.
if you need a package, just ask on the IRC and it will likely show up for you OR you can learn to use the build service and make packages happen yourself.
openSUSE wiki is quite possibly the best out there but that is my VERY subjective opinion.
Multi architecture support on the Tumbleweed edition, x86_32, x86_64, ARM, PPC.
openSUSE is NOT afraid to try something new or shy away from technologies, for example BTRFS. You may hear negative press on it but openSUSE as continued to hammer it out with upstream developers and really turn it into a rock solid file system. I look forward to seeing this file system continue to develop and improve
YaST is just plain awesome. That is, in fact, what sold me on openSUSE in the beginning. Even the terminal based ncurses version of YaST is really great and although I can do many of these things without the YaST tool, I find that the openSUSE/SUSE engineers have basically dialed it right and to stray from that is likely a mistake.
Finally, the Geeko chameleon logo is the coolest logo.
As others have noted, yes openSUSE is a great distro, for any level user. It makes many things easier to do, especially “advanced” tasks, yet, you can still do them the manual, CLI way if thats preferred. It also makes a great desktop distro (even Leap).
Leap 15 is bringing back the LiveCD’s which will help introduce people to openSUSE as well.
I think that openSUSE Tumbleweed is a very good distribution for you as it walks the nice line between bleeding edge and stability. This because of the openQA system and BTRFS rollbacks (on root partition).
Also Zypper is one of the best CLI applications (DNF is based on Zypper). I also still think YaST is a very good tool for people who are used to Windows Config Screen to learn Linux configuration.
A possible downside of openSUSE (+Packman) is a smaller amount of available software packages then say Arch or Ubuntu. More similar to Fedora + Copper. However, many developer tools are available on SUSE, Fedora and Ubuntu alike.
openSUSE community is very helpful. However, sometimes you will hear that if you want something that is not yet available, that you might want to spend some time / contribute to make it happen.
Personally, I think openSUSE is the best thing since sliced bread.
This is, IMHO, the only correct answer to that question.
A person’s choice of Linux Distro is a personal choice, depending on things from what they want to do with it, what they hope to achieve, level of experienct, down to tiny personal preferences.
Thank you for the answers, despite everything I read about the dangers of rolling release I will go with TumbleWeed because of the OpenQA & the roll back feature of the file system think there will be less risk.
Reinstalled TumbleWeed over 8 times something with the display was always the problem, couldnt even launch terminator because it said something about $DISPLAY. I think it has to do with my Quadro graphics card. I got Leap up and running, its smooth as butter.
