OpenSUSE: A First Impression

English Open Chat
1

Ok guys, First day of finally getting my SUSE partition up and running and I’ve pretty much spent all day tweaking the hell out of it. So I’m gonna just spank out my first impressions. Bare in mind I’ve come from ubuntu so there are going to be some comparisons. I’m gunna split this up into good and bads. On the bads don’t hesitate to point out help:-
Goods:
#1: Looks really good and polished through all the menus and default settings.
#2: The polished feel really feels great considering SUSE isn’t seen as such a main-stream OS
#3: Drivers etc. already on there after my first restart.
#4: The community, although the Ubuntu community is massive, its very easy to get lost and ignored within the deep relms of the fubuntu.
#5: Individuality, SUSE does not just follow the quota with gnome, the SLAB menu is a really good idea (although I have some issues with it)
#6: Chameleons rock my socks.
#7: In various areas SUSE out performs Ubuntu in terms of application and Compiz speed
Bads:
#1: New commands, yeah its nitpicky but its an immediate set-back
#2: Caf will tell you that I had some troubles whilst partitioning, Threatening to format windows was not the friendliest thing on earth.
#3: SLAB, its a good idea but I wish I could flick through all my applications in the menu rather than a whole new window.
#4: Package management, the main issue for me. Ubuntu made installing packages so easy for me and there needs to be a big change to SUSE to match that. For example I want to find a dock but I need to search the net for the RPM instead of entering afew command lines.
#5: Crashes, sometimes when I go into a switcher either SUSE or Compiz will crash, on Ubuntu I only ever had one crash.
#6: Docks, I’m a big dock fan as I own an iMac and I really want cairo dock but I just can’t find a way to install it, and I can’t find a suitable replacement.

Notes
Although this migh sound like I’m really anti and I’m taking the hostile approach, I’m really not. I wouldn’t have made this thread otherwise. I’ve found OpenSUSE fun as a new experience pushing me out of my comfort zone and making come on a learning curve that I have come to expect from linux. If it ain’t broken, find something wrong with it, that somes up my fascination with Linux.

If you would like to post tips or your own experiences when you started SUSE feel free.

Have a great day and happy posting, Tie.

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On 6/28/09 5:56 PM, NismoTie wrote:
> [snip]
> Bads:
> #1: New commands, yeah its nitpicky but its an immediate set-back
Basic commands should be the same. Only difference would be zypper
instead of apt-get and su instead of sudo.
> #3: SLAB, its a good idea but I wish I could flick through all my
> applications in the menu rather than a whole new window.
You can switch from the SLAB system to the original.
> #4: Package management, the main issue for me. Ubuntu made installing
> packages so easy for me and there needs to be a big change to SUSE to
> match that. For example I want to find a dock but I need to search the
> net for the RPM instead of entering afew command lines.
zypper se search_term seems easy enough or Yast -> Software Management
and search there. If nothing is coming up I would check your repos and
maybe list the output of zypper -lr.
> #5: Crashes, sometimes when I go into a switcher either SUSE or Compiz
> will crash, on Ubuntu I only ever had one crash.
Not sure what you mean by going into a switcher.
> #6: Docks, I’m a big dock fan as I own an iMac and I really want cairo
> dock but I just can’t find a way to install it, and I can’t find a
> suitable replacement.
>
Looks like that dock is in the packman repo.
http://packages.opensuse-community.org/index.jsp?searchTerm=cairo+dock&distro=openSUSE_111

3

I foud this some strange and try to answer to you (but in many cases you got a help in application devision of forum)

#1: New commands, yeah its nitpicky but its an immediate set-back

yeah this is can be some trouble for newbie that switch from another distro.
but new commands is only yast and zypper :slight_smile: in most cases

#2: Caf will tell you that I had some troubles whilst partitioning, Threatening to format windows was not the friendliest thing on earth.

??? it is very easy with yast partitione. I have know idea why you have trouble with this.
if you want you can use fdisk parted or gparted for your taste

#3: SLAB, its a good idea but I wish I could flick through all my applications in the menu rather than a whole new window.

that is about taste. as for me I like this way. for my recent programs I make some shortcuts in gnome firefox win+b terminal win+t and so on
also I like use of alt+F2 shortcut and run the program instead of from menu
also I have some aliases in my ~/.bashrc that helps me in some cases bash is so great ))))

#4: Package management, the main issue for me. Ubuntu made installing packages so easy for me and there needs to be a big change to SUSE to match that. For example I want to find a dock but I need to search the net for the RPM instead of entering afew command lines.

hehehe I have a local flame on this problem ))
zypper is yours sancho panca
it is much more usefull then apt-get

zypper --help or man zypper

zypper search foo-package = zypper se foo-package
sudo zypper install foo-package = sudo zypper in foo-package
sudo zypper remove foo-package = sudo zypper rm foo-package

sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/foorepo foorepo#add repository

or you can use gui yast for package managing

#5: Crashes, sometimes when I go into a switcher either SUSE or Compiz will crash, on Ubuntu I only ever had one crash.

I am sure that operating syatem is not just another game, it should be stable and ascetic. compiz is just another porgram. programs that use openGL have less resources because of using compiz.
maybe when I buy new nvidia card I talk another but for now I think so.

#6: Docks, I’m a big dock fan as I own an iMac and I really want cairo dock but I just can’t find a way to install it, and I can’t find a suitable replacement.

as for docks
you can use cairo-dock or awn or plasmoid in kde or some other dock you free to use
personally I am do not like it, but i have experiment with it

4

Thanks to all of you guys, I’ve only been a Linux man for 2 years but I love the challenge, I kind of see my Linux as a hobby, tweaking it and fixing problems with it.

Tie

5

There’s a nice pointy-clicky package manager inside YaST :wink:

I used that to install cairo dock - it’s beautiful eye-candy.

6

There’s always the 1-click install… :wink: