Newbie Trying Out Linux

English Open Chat
1

Thought of saying hello to all of the venerable gurus of Linux/openSUSE after having my WiFi issue sorted out. I’m coming from Windows 10.

Background
I am currently a Windows 10 user and am thinking of giving Linux a (another) try. It has been something like 12 years since I last dabbled with Linux (Ubuntu) then. Back then, I just played around with it as a second OS and got nothing meaningful done on it. My productivity OS has always been Windows, just like most of the PC users out there.

Recently, my HDD died on me on my Dell XPS 8910. I have a C Drive (256 GB SSD) and a D Drive (2TB HDD) - the D Drive failed on me and I lost quite a bit there (I have also sent it for professional recovery). I just made a clean install of Windows 10, and thought to myself, why not try Linux. Perhaps it has matured quite a bit since the last decade.

I did some research around and stumbled upon Manjaro, being the latest up and coming, and is one of the recommended distros of Linux out there for beginners. I had it installed, and had some trouble initially on the WiFi, just like I had in here. Both of the issues are primarily from the interface being different. In Manjaro, the “+” button for adding a new network was missing and I was trying to connect to a Hidden Network. Here it was due to wicked - a throwback to early 2000s where a setup needs to be done. Luckily this got sorted out fairly quickly.

My Usage
I’m a regular desktop user with above average PC proficiency. Not fantastic, just above average. My usage primarily revolves around the following:

  1. Web-surfing (I currently use Firefox, just love their ad-blocker options when compared to Chrome). Mostly visiting comic/manga websites, Youtube, ordering stuff online, etc.
  2. Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access). I can live without MS Access and am open to alternative database options, but MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint are important. I use MS Office 2010 now on my Windows. This is important due to compatibility of files with my office work.
  3. Adobe Photoshop, Premiere and Audition. Most importantly would be Photoshop for my photos editing.
  4. Games, old games like Skyrim, Sid Meier’s Pirates, etc.
  5. Play music & watch movies / videos.
  6. Torrent sometimes

**Motivation to Try
**The main motivation is due to Windows 10 auto restart that happened more than 15 times over the span of last 3 years. Out of that, I remember a few instances where my work which was left open overnight vanished due to the forced update reboot. Thus, I have decided to try out Linux with the hope that this will not happen every again. I will likely keep Windows 10 due to Adobe suite not being available, but for the longer term, I intend to use everything else with Linux, if it is possible.

My PC is now on Triple Boot - Win 10, Manjaro and openSUSE. Why openSUSE now? The intention is to setup a home server for cloud backup as I lost data from my previous HDD crash. It was a really painful experience, it is currently in recovery service which I hope will be successful. I read that openSUSE and Fedora is good for server stuff, and has a decent GUI. From the reviews, both are not really for beginners, but since I have extra space in my 256GB SSD, why not.

My current setup is thus:

  1. 512GB Transcend SSD - Windows 10
  2. 2TB Seagate HDD - Data for Windows
  3. 256GB LiteOn SSD - Linux playground (Manjaro and openSUSE)

I hope in time, I can settle with just 1 distro and not having to distro hop. My experience with openSUSE so far has been positive, save for the weird wicked. Of course, this is after learning about the required partitioning required for Linux as a whole / , /boot/efi , /home and swap]. It is more minimalistic than Manjaro, which is fine by me but somehow it feels a little sluggish. May be I will look into my nVidia GTX 960 drivers later today. What I really like is the YAST, it has **** loads of options all in a GUI. No need to access command line to get things done. I really with it is available in Manjaro. Some may argue that command line is faster, but that requires me to read and memorise commands rather than having a platform to explore and learn.

Just here to share my experience so far, as I notice there are much lesser Windows triers nowadays. More seems to be coming from distro hopping. And also hope to learn some tricks to keep my desktop stable and productive. Am not really those ‘cutting edge’ experimenters, I just want stuff to works and be stable. :slight_smile:

2

Welcome aboard.

For comparison, I’ve been using openSUSE since 2006. Well, strictly speaking, it was SuSE in 2006 (SuSE 10.1), and openSUSE came into existence soon after that.

Right now, I am using Leap 15.2, which will be released in a few days. But pre-release versions have been available since some time in 2019. Testing 15.2 was just a side activity until around May 1 (this year), when I made that my main desktop.

I am using KDE Plasma 5 as my desktop environment. You did not tell us what desktop environment you are using. But when you get to the point of asking for help, then it will be useful to tell us what you are using. Different desktop environments have different quirks.

Yes, Yast is a great feature of openSUSE.

You mention issues with “wicked”. But you can use “NetworkManager” instead of “wicked”. I’m currently using “wicked” on my desktop system and “NetworkManager” on my laptop.

When Leap 15.2 is officially released on Thursday, you will see an increase in Forum activity, as people try out the new release and have questions with it.

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Welcome aboard (again…), your notes remind me of when, tired of the endless “Please wait…” icon on Win* Vista I switched to openSUSE 11 (and found myself with an unbootable system because the Win “automatic” installer was broken!)
Luckily many things have improved since then. Sure, openSUSE is not for absolute beginners coming from the MS world, but is quite easy for everybody willing to learn.
Strong points in my view:

  • it just works usually (well, unless you have unusual HW) and is rock solid in the LEAP version (check Tumbleweed if you are more adventurous and like the cutting edge);
  • YaST allows even beginners to change most configuration options (but is useful to seasoned users not doing sysadmin as an everyday job);
  • is desktop-agnostic, that means that beyond the flagship KDE or Gnome desktop you can actually install a dozen or so different desktops, almost impossible not finding one that suits you;
  • has a fantastic support community (just try asking anything here in the Forums, you’ll get an answer within hours most of the time, with a handful of experts like nrickert apparently working 24/7 :smiley: ).

Weak points (well, in the eyes of those not sticking to it or not willing to learn something…):

  • your life might not be easy if you need anything non Open Source, most notably Nvidia drivers and the like (you mentioned a GTX960); a setup is generally available for most configurations, but is not installed “out of the box” and unusual HW like “gaming” laptops might be a nightmare;
  • some install defaults might be more suited to enterprise users than to home enthusiasts and tweaking might not be as straightforward (read BTRFS file system, systemd configs, security configs to name a few);
  • the basic system comes from the Enterprise class SUSE, solid but a bit conservative (but, again, there is Tumbleweed for those looking for the cutting edge).

All in all, I see no problem for you as a desktop user if you are willing to replace MSOffice with LibreOffice, and in a few months the upcoming version 7 might have even better compatibility with MS formats.
You may find that playing games is not so easy and using your GTX 960 to its full potential not as straightforward as you might expect (but don’t forget to ask here on the Forums just in case).
If you are bound to the Adobe suite you might consider setting up a virtual machine with a copy of Win10 and the suite, better than having a dual boot just for that.
As a Win* user, you may find the KDE desktop easier to learn and use (written by a long time Gnome user…) but take the time to experiment with some of the alternatives if your time allows.
Anyway, ask here before giving up, we are here to help!

4

Welcome. Just a couple of notes on you current usage and what you could use in Linux:

  1. LibreOffice will cover your Word, Excel and Powerpoint needs but note that VisualBasic is not available; so, if you use VB in any MS applications, you may have to subscribe to Office.
  2. GIMP will more than meet your needs for photoediting.
  3. VLC for music and videos but see https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/536314-Multimedia-Guide-for-openSUSE-Leap-15-1 and follow the guidance, changing 15.1 to 15.2 as appropriate - I suspect there will be an updated page for 15.2 in the not too distant future.
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Welcome. I’m not here to promote the product even though I left Windows long ago and have been with this distro since version 9.1. I do try other Linuxes from time to time just to convince myself that there isn’t something better. The ratings for our OS are not nearly as high as Mint or Ubuntu. But one thing I can definitely say. In my opinion this users forum is the best, far ahead of all the others. I have always had prompt and accurate solutions to any problem that has popped up since 9.1.

I am truly thankful for this excellent support.

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I use Tumbleweed/KDE on all my machines and install that combination on other systems for newbies and more experienced users. Longtime Maintenance of the system is straight forward. That really matters. Servers (Postfix, Apache, MiniDLNA) are easy to install and configure. Make sure you got enough memory. 8 GB is fine. 16 GB allow for efficient disk caching which is 10 times faster than most SSDs. Don’t tinker. Stick to recommended procedures. Have a plan before migrating.

Trying out on a separate SSD is a great idea. I currently have Tumbleweed, Leap, Arch Linux, Manjaro, Fedora, CentOS and others installed and updated. The best experience is Tumbleweed/Leap.:wink:

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  1. Web-surfing: Firefox – openSUSE Leap tends to use an ESR version but, there is a Firefox repository with the latest version – which also applies to Tumbleweed …
  2. Microsoft Office: The only part of MS Office which ain’t in Linux is, Share Point – it is, sort of, but, it’s NFS >:) … LibreOffice Base has a native driver to access MS Access databases … You’ll have to replace Outlook by another PIM, such as the KDE PIM: Kontact. You’ll find that, LibreOffice Calc shares easily, without any of the lock-up issues which MS Excel has in Share Point.
  3. Adobe Photoshop, Premiere and Audition: Photoshop is easy: either KDE Digikam or GNOME Darktable. Premiere (video editing): either Kdenlive (KDE) or, Shotcut or, Openshot. Audition (audio editing): Audacity or, LMMS or, Ardour.
  4. Games: no idea – STEAM?
  5. Play music & watch movies / videos: Should all automatically be OK but, Codecs can be an issue due to licensing – there’s a small list of Codecs needed for Firefox to properly support HTML5 which are not in the openSUSE repositories for licensing reasons. Alternatively, there’s the “ONEPLAY Codec Pack” available for purchase from Fluendo.
  6. Torrent: For KDE there’s KTorrent; for GNOME there’s Fragments (in the Tumbleweed repository and, in the GNOME:Apps repository for Leap 15.2).
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I am using KDE as well, though not entirely sure which version it is. Since you mentioned “wicked”, do you know of a way to display an icon at the bottom right just like NetworkManager?

Also, I feel either openSUSE is slightly sluggish compared to Windows 10 in terms of responsiveness when opening stuff. I can’t seem to pinpoint the reason for that. Do you experience that as well? I just mucked around with GNOME as well, and it feels a not so sluggish. xfce also feels fast. Do you get that as well?

I read about it here somewhat, and I seems to have very slow response time with Discover. Perhaps I will create a separate thread for this.

If there’s one thing that I like about openSUSE, it hands down will be YaST. By far the best gem out there, and it seems that many in the Linux community (at least through my reading and Youtubing) agrees whenever openSUSE is mentioned.

As for your mention on nVidia, I somehow figured out how to use the CLI (really not my preference, but since it only involves a couple of lines, I managed it) to update my nVidia drivers to version 440.10. Performance was definitely better. My hardware is basically a Dell XPS8910, a 3.5 year old machine and fairly powerful. Enough for normal games. As for the installation, though on the more tedious side given the many options, I somewhat liked it more than Manjaro’s cause it allowed me to do some customisation. Though I must say, the partition manager’s interface needs some reworking. UI and UX is not as intuitive and takes a bit to figure out. Manjaro is definitely more user friendly. But all in all, it was fairly ok for a newbie like me.

I’m not into cutting edge / bleeding edge stuff. I prefer my stuff to work just fine, and I am fairly certain I have no immediate use for those cutting edge stuff. This is why I decided to venture out from the “beginner friendly” distros to come to try openSUSE as my 2nd stop in the first place. I just worry that as I get used to Manjaro, the same stuff happens like Windows where things break after an update. I actually spent a few days going through various website and Distrowatch to scour which distro fits a “Desktop” and “Server” usage, and not being too hard at the same time. You can see it in the categories list here: https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=opensuse

As for MS Office, I will take a dive with Wine as my copy of MS Office is 2010 and apparently that plays well with Linux. Will likely start a thread on this in the near future once I did some reading. For Adobe stuff, I was told (and some of my reading agrees) in the Manjaro forums that photo editing in Linux is good, video editing average and audio editing is ****. That’s should be ok, as I 85% of my stuff is photo editing. My video editing is very basic and should be sufficient. If I ever need audio editing, I’ll just boot Win 10 up.

This forum is actually somewhat a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect replies this quickly as activity seems very slow. Unlike in Manjaro where they have a Newbie section where activity just keeps going on every single hour. I must say, this forum does look more intimidating than Manjaro’s from the outside. I actually hesitated to come here due to the appearance as there’s no dedicated subsection for new comers, more so from a purely Windows user like me.

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Thanks for welcome. I suspect GIMP will be ok, and I have already download a copy onto my Windows to test it out. Usually when am editing photos, I tend to leave it overnight and that’s one of the main reason I got so mad with Windows 10 as it restart without my consent, making me lose all of my work. I hope openSUSE does not do that (Manjaro side told me that I update whenever I like). :smiley:

This is actually also one of the concerns at the back of my head. I’ve done some reading, but couldn’t figure out why openSUSE is dying. When I decided to just give openSUSE a try, I really did not expect the GUI to be somewhat good given it appears to be a declining distro. But I am really pleasantly surprised by YAST. This is exactly something I am looking for to help me configure my home server in the future - a GUI based distro that allows me to tweak advanced functions.

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Any ideas as to why openSUSE is experiencing a decline? One reason I can think about is the initial introduction is less polished than desktop oriented distros, but I don’t think that’s the only reason. Could it be due to lack of involvement from SUSE company or other reasons?

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Wow, that’s some serious distro hopping. Lol. Here’s my rig:

Yeah, for server I intend to get a used Xeon processor and build my own cheap setup, under $300 (excluding HDD and SSD). Space requirement will depend on my usage. Yeah, once I am happy with openSUSE, I will test it on my current desktop first (I will use a dedicated SSD and HDD for ‘server’ operations) for probably a couple of months before buying the used XEON setup. My rough plan is such:

Existing Rig:

Intel i7-6700
16GB RAM (might upgrade to 32GB)
nVidia GTX 960

Desktop + server setup

  1. 512GB Transcend SSD - Windows 10
  2. 2TB Seagate HDD - Data for Windows
  3. 256GB LiteOn SSD - Linux server boot drive (openSUSE/Manjaro, though now tilted towards openSUSE).
  4. (Planned purchase) 4TB HDD - Data for server, primarily for backup and ability to access files on-the-go.

I know Manjaro is not suited for server, but realistically, I will just use whichever distro I am capable of understanding after putting in some effort. :smiley:

I may just keep a separate openSUSE/Manjaro version on #3 256GB LiteOn SSD for my desktop usage as I plan my slow migration from Windows. If I can figure out how to run MS Office 2010 on Wine and how to use GIMP, as well as being happy with the result, I expect to see my Windows usage to plunge to only 15%.

  1. Lol, I am not really concerned about being cutting / bleeding edge. As long as it surf the web fine and my extenstions (like uBlock origins) works fine, I am perfectly happy.
  2. MS Office is a must, unfortunately. It has to do with work (I work with a big organisation that uses MS Office). Like I mentioned above, I will give it a go with Wine. If it can work, great. If not, I will just have to keep using it on Windows. I am prepared for that eventuality.
  3. This I can switch, as mentioned above. All of this is for personal consumption.
  4. For games, it’s only to pass time. Steam will work for Dota, but for others, I will keep Windows when I want to play. But looking forward, I envision I will have less time for this. LOL.
  5. Since you brought up codec, do you know of an equivalent of K-Lite Mega Codec Pack (a software that contains all the codecs there is out there) on Linux?
  6. I saw qTorrent on Manjaro, and actually used it to download Leap! LOL. I’m sure it will be good for openSUSE too.
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Hi
Web based analytics are very subjective at the best of times :wink: How many people use openSUSE, I imagine a few :wink:

Maybe a have a look here: https://metrics.opensuse.org/d/osrt_access/osrt-access?orgId=1

How about users who use the likes of RMT for their systems, one download location serving up in some cases thousands of instances of openSUSE?

Downward trend of web traffic does not necessarily indicate a lack of use, but also improvements to the final release that negate the need to actually require any help…

Perhaps a visit to https://status.opensuse.org/ will enlighten you to the services running, especially the likes of openQA https://openqa.opensuse.org/ and The Open Build Service https://build.opensuse.org/

12

From your main menu:

System –> Info Center

This will tell you your KDE version. Here it is Plasma 5.18.5 (with openSUSE Leap 15.2).

Since you mentioned “wicked”, do you know of a way to display an icon at the bottom right just like NetworkManager?

Off hand, no I don’t. If you like that icon, you can switch to NetworkManager.

Actually, “icewm” shows a tray icon for network. But I’m not sure what program does that.

Also, I feel either openSUSE is slightly sluggish compared to Windows 10 in terms of responsiveness when opening stuff. I can’t seem to pinpoint the reason for that. Do you experience that as well? I just mucked around with GNOME as well, and it feels a not so sluggish. xfce also feels fast. Do you get that as well?

I can’t compare to Windows 10, because I have avoided that. KDE is a bit slow at session startup, but runs very efficiently afterwards, at least in my experience. It seems to be designed to pay the costs at the beginning rather than continuously.

I read about it here somewhat, and I seems to have very slow response time with Discover. Perhaps I will create a separate thread for this.

I haven’t been using “Discover”. I use Yast as package manager. I guess I would use “Discover” if I wanted to try some flatpak software.

13

Hi
I’ve had no issues with LibreOffice for trading spreadsheets, presentations and documents with windows users…

Extra slot for a GPU in the system, if so, and your motherboard supports iommu, would recommend qemu and gpu passthrough (what I use here as well as USB and SATA passthrough). If you really want to run MS Office, then would suggest using Codeweavers crossover to run it, yes it’s wine but less fluffing around to get it working…

I run Tumbleweed as my primary desktop, RPi’s with Leap and SLES, Laptops with Leap and SLED, a SLES server (but that runs SuMA), qemu machines running WinX, Leap, SLES and SLED…

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Consider this as a reference and modify it according to your requirements: Build your own fast, cheap, quiet and reliable computer!

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Think about running Office in a virtual machine (whether or not you like the route advised by @malcolmlewis) rather than on wine which might require extra effort just to play smoothly, unless you have previous experience with that.

  1. This I can switch, as mentioned above. All of this is for personal consumption.
  2. For games, it’s only to pass time. Steam will work for Dota, but for others, I will keep Windows when I want to play. But looking forward, I envision I will have less time for this. LOL.
  3. Since you brought up codec, do you know of an equivalent of K-Lite Mega Codec Pack (a software that contains all the codecs there is out there) on Linux?

I don’t know if you have special needs with media from unusual sources or you have special legal requirements which are more restrictive in some parts of the world, but once I installed the codecs available from the packman repo I never had problems with media.

  1. I saw qTorrent on Manjaro, and actually used it to download Leap! LOL. I’m sure it will be good for openSUSE too.

If you mean qBittorrent, I regularly use it as an alternative to “native” apps like Transmission on Gnome.

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No.

  • Most Linux users tend to use the Packman repositories for Codecs with licensing issues – so long as you can handle the licensing issues, that’s possibly the best solution.
  • If you happen to live in a region with strict legislation regarding licensing, buy the Fluendo solution.
  • I’m not sure but, I suspect that, there aren’t that many Codecs needed to play Video and Audio or, to take part in Video/Audio conferences, which aren’t in the Packman repositories.
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Yes, that is rather unfortunate – my personal solution would be to buy a cheaper modern Laptop with a basic Windows 10 license and “only just enough” disk plus, an MS Office license with enough facilities to cover your work – you didn’t mention Visio …

  • For this use case – strict division of “work” and “personal / private” – I would advise against a Dual/Triple/Quadruple-Boot solution.
  • If you work involves large spreadsheets and/or applications such as IBM Rational DOORS, you’ll need to make sure that the Laptop can handle a 34 inch screen plus, possibly, an external keyboard and mouse …
18

From my simple observation between here and Manjaro’s forum, the buzz is on a different level. I think the direction of search trends overtime is a good indicator of where things are headed, as if the user base is large, more searches will invariably happen as there are more bug encounters, more issues cropping up, more requests for certain features, etc. This is more so for the desktop world, probably less for corporate world since SUSE seems to be doing fine, at least financially. I’m only voicing out cause I thought this is actually quite a good distro that can cater (though much improvement in user friendliness is always welcome) for both desktop and server. It’s a really unique position imo, it’s a shame to see it fading away from interest. :slight_smile: Anyway, just some observations from someone on the “outside”.

Thanks for the recommendation of Codeweavers, will look into it. Prelim glances seems like goof stuff. I would prefer to not use VMWare as it is resource intensive, until the day when I decide to do something dangerous. lol! If it helps solves the pain, it will always be welcome.

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Mine is 5.12.8, on Leap 15.1.

Yast is reasonably fast. “Discover” is quite sluggish.

Lol, his system is really not cheap at all. The specs are quite crazy. A side note on ADATA SSDs, I read they are quite problematic which is why when I purchased my latest upgrade, I decided to skip ADATA after scouring the net.

20

I just like to do-it-once for the codecs thing. With K-Lite Mega Codec, I always download it whenever I reformat my comp. Install once and forget about codecs. I was hoping there may be similar options, but then again, perhaps what’s already installed will be enough. Back in the 2000s, codecs were a big thing. Many file formats of videos being shared, and thus K-Lite became famous.