Purchased openSUSE-11.4 boxed version

English Open Chat
#1

I purchased my version of openSUSE-11.4 earlier this week.

The delivery was fast. I ordered it on Thurday 14-July, and it arrived by DHL (in our packstation box) today on Saturday 16-July. This fast delivery was pleasing, as I confess I was very late in ordering 11.4 this year.

Of course one can download 11.4 from the Internet, and in fact I have done so already, with 11.4 already installed on my Sandbox PC and on a Test Partition on my main PC. Still, I’ve almost purchased every version of openSUSE (and before that SuSE-Pro) since version-7.3 and I did not want to break the trend of my purchases.

My being a native English speaker, I typically prefer to order the English packaged version, as I obtain the manual and packaging in the English langauge, and I was pleased to see that offered.

For those who are curious, this is the packaging:

First the box from the front:
http://thumbnails46.imagebam.com/14083/3ffc09140828090.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/3ffc09140828090)
Click on thumbnail image for larger image

Second the box from the back:
http://thumbnails35.imagebam.com/14083/f259fb140828092.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/f259fb140828092)
Click on thumbnail image for larger image

And now the box contents next to the box (from the front)
http://thumbnails48.imagebam.com/14083/8fcfa5140828097.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/8fcfa5140828097)
Click on thumbnail image for larger image

And finally the back of the box contents.
http://thumbnails45.imagebam.com/14083/d93989140828099.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/d93989140828099)
Click on thumbnail image for larger image

There is an activation code (which I blanked out in this image) , which I believe is for the basic support that comes with purchasing openSUSE-11.4. I confess even though I have pretty much purchased every version since 7.3 I’ve never used this support … still its there for those interested.

Inside the DVD container are two DVDs.

One DVD is a double layer combined openSUSE-11.4 32-bit and 64-bit install. It has a note on it as to the recommended System Requirements: Processor: Intel Pentium 1-4 and Xeon; AMD Duron, Athlon, Athlon XP, Athlon MP, Athlon 64, Sempron and Opteron, Phenom X2, X3, X4, X6; 32-bit and 64-bit, Supports most modern sound and graphics cards.

The second DVD is labelled balsam-extensions with purported this inside:

  • Live-DVD
  • Plasma Mobile UI
  • Non open source software
  • balsam repos

The small ‘Start-Up’ Manual is very good, with this for contents:

  • About this guide (4-pages)
  • Installation Quick Start (8-pages with screen shots)
  • KDE Quick Start (~30 pages)
  • GNOME Quick Start (~22 pages)
  • LibreOffice Quick Start (~16 pages)
  • Help and Troubleshooting (~33 pages)

In particular the ‘Help and Troubleshoot’ section was very good. Some of the troubleshooting techniques were educational for me and I have been using GNU/Linux since 1998 and a variant of SuSE or openSUSE since 2001.

Since I live in Germany, I found it convenient to order from SUSE shop like I have many times in the past.

One can find where openSUSE can be purchased by clicking on this link: Buy openSUSE - openSUSE

#2

Thanks for sharing this with us oldcpu. I would say, just as you suggested, its a little late in the openSUSE 11.4 cycle to purchase this, but it does show your support for openSUSE. I plan on a purchase of the boxed version of 12.1 when it comes out late in the year. I have only purchased two boxed versions, 10.1 and 11.0 but I do feel it shows your support of openSUSE to do so and I have so far bought one of each major release, though the new numbering method will bump up this support I guess. As a side note, I had read somewhere that some of the people posing in the openSUSE package front picture are writers for the Linux Format magazine. Not sure if its true or not, but I do very much like to read that magazine. It will be interesting to see what we get in the way of a boxed versions with our very new setup at SuSE.

http://thumbnails41.imagebam.com/14097/3f7ba1140961418.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/3f7ba1140961418)

http://www.imagebam.com/image/3f7ba1140961418

Thank You,

#3

Thanks jdmcdaniel3, yes, it is a little late in the openSUSE-11.4 release cycle as you note.

I confess, I’m quite ‘bad’ (or ‘slow’ may be a better word) when it comes to updating my main PC to the latest openSUSE version.

For example, I installed openSUSE-11.3 on my main PC (replacing openSUSE-11.2) at the very end of this year (late December) which was only about 3 months before openSUSE-11.4 was released. I am still running openSUSE-11.3 on my main PC, although I did use the openSUSE-11.4 DVD that I purchased in this blog post to install openSUSE-11.4 on my wife’s PC.

Her PC is running very well with 11.4. Its a good release.

I also have openSUSE-11.4 installed in a ‘test partition’ on my main PC, and I have openSUSE-11.4 (and Tumbleweed-11.4 and openSUSE-12.1 milestone-2) installed on my Sandbox PC (in 3 different partitions).

While I try hard to test every milestone/release-candidate release that is made available by SuSE-GmbH for openSUSE community testing, when it comes to my main PC, I am incredibly conservative, and I wait until 1/3 the way through the supported life cycle of a new release, before I install on my main PC. That provides a LOT of time to shake out bugs and for 3rd party applications to be packaged. Most definitely ultra-conservatism. At times I’ve even skipped releases when installing on my main PC, although when I skip a release I still typically purchase the boxed set.

This year I definitely was very late in purchasing the boxed set.

#4

So, oldcpu, I doubt anyone will fault you on how you run your PC’s and I fully understand the reasons. I still have 11.3 running on my HTPC and we watch a movie on it every week, we watched Rango (About the adventures of a green Lizard as a matter of fact). It (the HTPC) works great and no reason yet to change it. I often would like to take the same approach on my main PC, but I just can not do it. Eventually, the new openSUSE release calls to me and it gets installed, warts and all. And, of course, there is much good to be had and really, working out issues is a challenge and kind of fun. I am hoping for a great release in openSUSE 12.1, lets hope it is so.

Thank You,

#5

Thanks oldcpu for sharing that information. I love reading your entries that just talk about what you are doing.