Will there ever be an official release of OpenSuse for the Raspberry Pi?

English Hardware
#1

Hi,

Will there ever be an official release of OpenSuse for the Raspberry Pi?

I asked this question some 18 months ago and was told that all Arm development was occurring in Arm V7 (if my memory serves me right) which was not compatible with the Arm in the Raspberry Pi ( V6?).
With the growing numbers of Rasberry Pi users (1.5 million + ), many learning about computers for the first time, I am sure they would appreciate OpenSuse as an o/s.

Or, is this a platform that will never be supported?

I have searched and googled myself silly trying to find any statement of intent from OpenSuse.Org about the Raspberry Pi.

Thanks.

Stanch

#2

On Tue 13 Aug 2013 03:46:04 PM CDT, stanch wrote:

Hi,

Will there ever be an official release of OpenSuse for the Raspberry
Pi?

I asked this question some 18 months ago and was told that all Arm
development was occurring in Arm V7 (if my memory serves me right) which
was not compatible with the Arm in the Raspberry Pi ( V6?).
With the growing numbers of Rasberry Pi users (1.5 million + ), many
learning about computers for the first time, I am sure they would
appreciate OpenSuse as an o/s.

Or, is this a platform that will never be supported?

I have searched and googled myself silly trying to find any statement
of intent from OpenSuse.Org about the Raspberry Pi.

Thanks.

Stanch

Hi
Have you read through here of supported hardware etc?
http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:ARM

I suggest jumping on the IRC channel to talk to the folks involved
direct.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.3 (x86_64) Kernel 3.7.10-1.16-desktop
up 3:23, 3 users, load average: 0.52, 0.56, 0.51
CPU AMD E2-1800@1.70GHz | GPU Radeon HD 7340

#3

Hi Malcolm,

Thanks for the suggestion - unfortunately it has been another fruitless search as I couldn’t find any mention of the Raspberry Pi there.
I have a growing feeling that OpenSuse.org is quietly ignoring the Raspberry Pi, certainly there is no source of information for mere users such as myself.
It would be nice to know if anything was being done though…
Oh well… back to Debian, Fedora, Arch & Risc O/S that are available.

Rgds.

Stanch

#4

On 08/14/2013 09:26 AM, stanch wrote:
> OpenSuse.org is quietly ignoring the Raspberry Pi

opensuse.org has only X number hands…and they ARE busy…so, as
far as i know they are not “quietly ignoring” anything, but rather
too busy to take on new work…

now, if you want to volunteer to take on the new work to support the
Pi i’m pretty sure you would be warmly welcomed…

you could get started here maybe:

https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:How_to_participate
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:How_to_contribute_to_Factory

–
dd
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Complaints

#5

Its an interesting question … wrt openSUSE on a Tablet. My 1st generation Asus Transformer (TF101) is starting to get old, and I now tend to use my Android Smart phone more than I use my old 1st generation Asus Transformer Tablet. Hence the temptation to hack my Tablet is getting larger (although I don’t think I’m quite ready to do so yet). Before I would try this myself, I am the sort who would want proof that someone else has paved the way (as I am not so adventurous to be the 1st to try).

There is an old guide here on how to install opensUSE on an external SD card for a Tablet that can use such cards: openSUSE chroot - xda-developers

… and I note many ARM images for openSUSE here for ARM devices which presumeably are limited to a subset of Tablets : Index of /ports/armv7hl/distribution

… and opensuse IRC channel #opensuse-arm on Freenode appears to be the place to ask questions if one is serious about trying to install openSUSE on their Tablet.

#6

stanch wrote:
> malcolmlewis;2579016 Wrote:
>> Hi
>> Have you read through here of supported hardware etc?
>> ‘Portal:ARM - openSUSE’ (http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:ARM)
>>
>> I suggest jumping on the IRC channel to talk to the folks involved
>> direct.
>>
>> –
>> Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
>> openSUSE 12.3 (x86_64) Kernel 3.7.10-1.16-desktop
>> up 3:23, 3 users, load average: 0.52, 0.56, 0.51
>> CPU AMD E2-1800@1.70GHz | GPU Radeon HD 7340
>
> Hi Malcolm,
>
> Thanks for the suggestion - unfortunately it has been another fruitless
> search as I couldn’t find any mention of the Raspberry Pi there.
> I have a growing feeling that OpenSuse.org is quietly ignoring the
> Raspberry Pi, certainly there is no source of information for mere users
> such as myself.
> It would be nice to know if anything was being done though…

I take it you’ve ignored the second half of Malcolm’s suggestion?
“jumping on the IRC channel to talk to the folks involved direct”.
That might be too easy and actually answer your question. :slight_smile:

> Oh well… back to Debian, Fedora, Arch & Risc O/S that are available.

Personally, I haven’t found any reason yet to use anything other than
raspbian. I’d rather be one of many people using the same configuration
than set out to explore the bugs in what would be a minority combination
of OS and hardware. But each to his own.

#7

Hi DD,

Thank you for your reply, unfortunately I do not have the skill or knowledge or even an idea of where to start to produce OpenSuse for Raspberry Pi.
I am glad you know they are busy I would just like to know if in the future they have plans to do anything with the Raspberry Pi. How do I ask this?
This information doesn’t seem to be available anywhere. I am sorry if I have upset anyone with my enquiry, it wasn’t my intention.

Rgds.

Stanch

#8

On 2013-08-14 15:56, stanch wrote:

> I am glad you know they are busy I would just like to know if in the
> future they have plans to do anything with the Raspberry Pi. How do I
> ask this?

For example, in the project or factory mail lists.
openSUSE communication
channels

> This information doesn’t seem to be available anywhere. I am sorry if
> I have upset anyone with my enquiry, it wasn’t my intention.

Not me, certainly :slight_smile:

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))

#9

On 08/14/2013 03:56 PM, stanch wrote:
> I would just like to know if in the
> future they have plans to do anything with the Raspberry Pi.

you speak of the openSUSE developers as if they all work for some big
company and the company has said: Don’t work on Raspberry Pi. or
maybe you hope they said: We will begin working on Raspberry Pi in
November and have it on the street in one year!

but the fact is that by and large the workers do what they wanna
do…yes, they come together as a group and set goals then try to
work together to meet their goals…

hmmmm…about three years ago they spent a LOT of time talking about
their goals, and one of them was to NOT get into the mobile device
business…about six or 12 months after that huge decision some of
the really interested ones started working on supporting Arm…so!!

> How do I ask this?

there is no Big Boss Man with a play book in his back pocket…but,
there are several mail lists, why don’t you read through the history
of how the Arm development came about…here are over 3,000 hits:
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Alists.opensuse.org+Arm

and then you might join and post to that list (or maybe
opensuse-project mail list) and ask your question… but do not be
surprised if the answer is similar to mine: Since our hands are busy
doing what we want to do, and you want us to do what you want us to
do, how many people are you bringing to help you do what you want to do??

> This information doesn’t seem to be available anywhere.

have you not discovered Google yet? here are almost 4000 hits (the
first four or five are ads to ignore):

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aopensuse.org+“Raspberry+Pi”

> I am sorry if
> I have upset anyone with my enquiry, it wasn’t my intention.

i’m not upset and hope you didn’t read that into what i wrote…i WAS
hoping you wanted to put together a team of developers and lead the
work effort…

and as far as “I do not have the skill or knowledge or even an idea
of where to start to produce OpenSuse for Raspberry Pi.” there would
be a need to form a team of developers, documentation writers,
translators, graphic artist, marketing gurus, packagers, testers, etc
etc etc etc…BIG team, lots on hands needed…just get that
organized and get’er done!

otherwise, maybe it will look like ‘they’ are quietly ignoring while
in fact there is already something to test (check out that Arm
archive, where i see: “I just download the latest version for the
Raspberry Pi.” dated 10 Apr 2013 at

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-arm/2013-04/msg00058.html

and, what did you learn when you jumped on the IRC?

–
dd
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Complaints

#10

Hi,

No, no … I didn’t ignore Malcolm’s suggestion of “jumping on the IRC channel” - I just don’t know how to do it yet. I will start googling that tonight hopefully.

Rgds.

Stanch

#11

Hi DD,

Thanks for your comprehensive reply. I didn’t know that there wasn’t an organisation with a planned agenda.

I think it’s going to be easier, infact, a lot easier if I just forget the matter.

Rgds.

stanch

#12

On 08/14/2013 06:16 PM, stanch wrote:
> I didn’t know that there wasn’t an organisation with a planned agenda.

there is an agenda, right now it is:

-producing a new version (for 32/64 bit Intel/AMD based systems as
well as for an ARM) every eight months

-building, testing and distributing security patches and bug fixes
for two to five versions (right now supported are 12.2 Evergreen,
11.4 Evergreen, 12.2, 12.3 and Tumbleweed)

-supporting the users of those versions via these forums, and mail
list and IRC

-plan and have an annual (at least) conference in somewhere (last was
in Greece, year before in Florida . . .)

-maintain a Wiki, continually improve the documentation, etc

-and other stuff…like plan ahead…and seek new horizons…(this is
a secret but i can tell you that the first ever Time Machine will
have a “Powered by SUSE” sticker, no doubt!)

–
dd
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Complaints

#13

stanch wrote:
>
> djh-novell;2579175 Wrote:
>> stanch wrote:
>>> malcolmlewis;2579016 Wrote:
>>>> Hi
>>>> Have you read through here of supported hardware etc?
>>>> ‘Portal:ARM - openSUSE’ (‘Portal:ARM - openSUSE’
>> (http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:ARM))
>>>>
>>>> I suggest jumping on the IRC channel to talk to the folks involved
>>>> direct.
>>>>
>>>> –
>>>> Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
>>>> openSUSE 12.3 (x86_64) Kernel 3.7.10-1.16-desktop
>>>> up 3:23, 3 users, load average: 0.52, 0.56, 0.51
>>>> CPU AMD E2-1800@1.70GHz | GPU Radeon HD 7340
>>>
>>> Hi Malcolm,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the suggestion - unfortunately it has been another
>> fruitless
>>> search as I couldn’t find any mention of the Raspberry Pi there.
>>> I have a growing feeling that OpenSuse.org is quietly ignoring the
>>> Raspberry Pi, certainly there is no source of information for mere
>> users
>>> such as myself.
>>> It would be nice to know if anything was being done though…
>>
>> I take it you’ve ignored the second half of Malcolm’s suggestion?
>> “jumping on the IRC channel to talk to the folks involved direct”.
>> That might be too easy and actually answer your question. :slight_smile:
>>
>>> Oh well… back to Debian, Fedora, Arch & Risc O/S that are available.
>>
>> Personally, I haven’t found any reason yet to use anything other than
>> raspbian. I’d rather be one of many people using the same configuration
>> than set out to explore the bugs in what would be a minority
>> combination
>> of OS and hardware. But each to his own.
>
> Hi,
>
> No, no … I didn’t ignore Malcolm’s suggestion of “jumping on the IRC
> channel” - I just don’t know how to do it yet. I will start googling
> that tonight hopefully.
>
> Rgds.
>
> Stanch
>
>
Easy to use irc
Firefox+chatzilla = irc

chatzilla :-
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chatzilla/

After installing and restarting FX click on the irc link and you will
join a chat channel
IRC link irc://irc.freenode.net/opensuse-arm from
https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:ARM

–
GNOME 3.6.2
openSUSE Release 12.3 (Dartmouth) 64-bit
Kernel Linux 3.7.10-1.16-desktop