OpenSUSE has always been an odd sort of Linux distribution. It's always been reasonably user friendly, very stable, and quite nicely pulled off the not-so-easy task of being good for new users while offering advanced and power users the flexibility and freedom they require.
Yet OpenSUSE often gets a bad wrap. There's that whole Novell/Microsoft/the world is ending conspiracy thing going on, for one thing. Certainly when Novell bought SuSE, it was disturbing. What were Novell's intentions? Where were things going to go from this point? Was openSUSE going to suffer for it?
Suffer? We probably wouldn't go as far as to say that. Were the changes and improvements to the distribution immediately after Novell took the helm earth-shaking? No, not particularly. They were modest, and worked well enough, but nothing that seemed leaps and bounds beyond the previous versions.
Nothing seemed leaps and bounds beyond -- until now. Today, OpenSUSE officially rolled out the 11.0 release. OpenSUSE seems to have scrutinized itself, from the kernel to the community. The developers pushed away from what seemed like an "adapt to survive" mode, and rolled out a release with changes so dramatic and beautiful that the distribution's chameleon ("geeko") mascot seems less cute and instead genuinely fitting.
If we had one word, and only one word to use to describe OpenSUSE 11.0, it would be this:
Fast.
Yes, dear readers. We just used the word "fast" (boldface, even) in relation to an OpenSUSE release. It starts and runs applications quickly, and we can say completely honestly, it installs quickly. We aren't just talking system updates and "here and there" YaST additions. No... You can boot the liveCD and have a complete OpenSUSE 11.0 system on your hard drive in what seems even slightly less time than an Ubuntu install.
Way back in the dark ages of 1993, we were introduced to this thing called email. Email in the olden days was not like email now. All the packets traveled uphill no matter where they were going, and usually there was a good three or four feet of snow on the internet backbone. We used these big hulking things called VAX/VMS nodes that were attached to some pretty sweet fourteen inch monochrome VT 100 terminals. There were also these machines that ran something called UNIX, which sounded to us like something that should have been found in the college health center, not the computer lab.
Eons passed, and things changed. Though there were many more email packets flying around, plate tectonics had changed the course of things so that now they traveled downhill, really really fast. The internet backbone became a series of tubes. All the VT 100 terminals banded together and created an archipelago in the South Pacific. And UNIX...
UNIX evolved. Mutated. It trickled down into various UNIX brands and distributions. There were things like BSD UNIX, HP-UX, and AT&T Bell Labs UNIX. There were other branches, too, rogue sprouts on the evolutionary tree: FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. Slightly alien but vaguely reminiscent life forms injected their DNA into the gene pool: Linux, and this weird little UNIX-esque animal called Solaris.
Sun recently let Solaris go open source. OpenSolaris is more a traditional UNIX environment than a Linux type environment, but the appeal of taking a peek at the 2008.05 OpenSolaris release was too great for us to resist. The folks at OpenSolaris knew this, and baked some goodies into the OS that no Linux user could refuse.
We were given a no-strings attached liveCD, so our Linux install would never know we cheated. We had a bash shell, and the GNOME desktop environment, so our eye candy and commands would feel familiar and easy.
When we last left our favorite evil geniuses at Ulteo, they were diligently plugging away at making OpenOffice.org applications accessible through a browser. Now, they've taken their plans for global domination one step further with Ulteo Application System Beta 1 (codename "Sirius"). For those of you wondering what exactly an "Application System" is: Think operating system.
Yes, Ulteo's Sirius is a Linux distro designed to integrate nicely with the online applications they provide. For instance, saving a document to a specific folder "auto-syncs" with the Ulteo servers online. It's then accessible from other computers through your Ulteo web account.
Of course, that isn't all of Ulteo's new tricks. Allegedly all upgrades, patches and bugfixes for installed applications will be automatically downloaded and installed on your system. You know, without any human intervention. We'll be the first to admit that it's our all-too-human intervention that mucks up a lot of our software, but not always. Somehow, we're just a little uneasy not knowing exactly what our machine is plotting against us with each new update.
Still, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially for people who use their computers for dedicated office work fewer than twenty-seven hours a day and don't want to bother learning Linux (or Windows, or Mac, for that matter). It'll be nice to see this project unfold and emerge from beta.
All right, the headline is a little bit of a lie. Some Linux installs are hairier, take longer, and just aren't as soothing as the one we're about to show you. They do all work approximately the same way, however, and that's just fine for us as a point of illustration.
So there we are, looking at the "Download" page of an Ubuntu derived distribution. We decide that we'll download the x86 version of the distro (we'll assume we don't have a 64 bit or PPC system or don't want a 64 bit OS). So we click on the file that ends in .iso, and it starts downloading.
We know how it is. You like to hack. You like to develop software -- or maybe you just like to watch developing software coming together (there are stranger hobbies). You've been known to play with alpha software. Yes, yes, you truly live on the edge.
But you're an adult (well, you know, mostly. Chronologically, anyway). You have responsibilities. You need a stable environment for your data. Your documents. Your pictures. Your.. ahem... multimedia collection.
You can have the best of both worlds. The openSUSE project has announced the arrival of the Factory LiveCDs. Whether you're a hacker or just curious about what's going to unfold with openSUSE 11.0 later this year, this is a great way to get a sneak peek without disturbing your desktop.
The liveCDs are, according to Stephan Kulow, xdelta files running in conjuction with the most recent liveCDs, and come in both GNOME and KDE varieties.
Still not quite ready to test? You haven't too long to wait. OpenSUSE 11.0 is scheduled for public release on June 19 of this year.
Ever wish you had your whole desktop on a flash disk? You know what we mean, you take a spreadsheet up to your 'rents, and you realize that they have no program to actually open your spreadsheet with. Or maybe you hop from computer to computer in several offices, and hate the fact that every computer you work on is just different enough to make it difficult to get things done.
Even if you don't use Linux as a main desktop, it can come in handy in these types of situations. Flash storage is cheap as dirt, and there are a number of small, yet full-bodied distributions that can run off flash drives. Most modern computers can boot from USB mass storage by changing the boot order in the computer's BIOS (if you've never done this, please consult your computer's documentation. It's not particularly difficult, but does vary a bit from computer to computer.)
We're looking at two such distributions over the next couple Switch installments. The two little distributions -- Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux Not -- have been chosen for their flexibility and very different approaches to the same issues. Many distributions can be pared down to fit on flash drives, but these two are optimized for it from the get-go.
Red Hat released Fedora 7 today, a new version of their Linux operating system developed in partnership with the open source community and Red Hat engineers. This is Fedora's first release to merge the Fedora Core and Fedora Extras package repositories under one set of packaging policies. Another first for Fedora 7 is all the software used is released under a free license, and all decision-making is made in public.
The big innovations touted for this release are:
Revisor tool - a graphical appliation built on top of Fedora's other build tools that gives flexibility to build an ISO, a live CD, etc. Mike Spevack, Fedora's project leader, feels this is Fedora's crown jewel. Customized versions of Fedora are now possible to an extent that was not available previously.
Live CD - first time for Fedora, (however not an industry shake-up here).
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology has been integrated with the Fedora graphical virtualization manager tool. KVM provides a full virtualization solution, and users have a choice between KVM and Xen, along with Qemu, in this release.
You can pick up a copy of this new version at the Fedora Project. Thanks FF!
For those who have tried out or even purchased Parallels, odds are the first virtual machine you created was for Windows XP. I'm also willing to bet that you underestimated how large to create your virtual hard disk. If that's the case, then that clever chap Dan over at UNEASYsilence has put together an über-handy how-to on making some more elbow room for yourself.
Using a combination of the Parallels Image Tool and the GParted LiveCD you can, with little effort, add as much or as little space that you like to your Windows XP virtual hard disk. And since it's all virtual, you can test it out by making a 'backup' copy of your existing virtual hard disk just in case you run into trouble. (While you're over there, make sure to check out ToasterClone as well!)
One of the best and handiest tools in the power user's toolbox is GParted. I've written about it before, and the short version is this: GParted is an open source Linux app for modifying your hard drive's partitions without losing any data. It has support for a huge number of file systems, including those belonging to Windows, and though it's not as easy to use as some commercial solutions, it has the distinct advantage of being totally free. If you want a hand getting up and running with GParted, Ihighly recommend Modify Your Partitions With GParted Without Losing Data, a new article over at HowtoForge. It runs you through the whole process of using the fantastic GParted LiveCD to shuffle around your partitions to your heart's content.
A bit of a warning, though: Repartitioning is an inherently risky activity, and messing with existing partitions without first making a backup could, as the kids say, end in tears. Always backup.
Readers, in your opinion, what is the very best Linux distro and why? I have heard everything from Ubuntu (though it isn't clear how you pronounce it) to Gentoo, Knoppix, Debian, Xandros, Linspire, and so on...You can see the dilemma. For anyone who isn't familiar with Linux, or someone just starting out with Linux, which distro is the best? The easiest to install? Easiest to use? Which comes with the most or best applications pre-bundled? Best for XP users who want to play with Linux? Best Live CD Linux? On this post, you get the last say. Depending on the response to this, I will post the results of this "poll" in a day or two with your top choices for Linux distro. So feel free, sound off, it's up to you! I'll be handing out stars to the top (most informative or creative) comments.
Looking for a fast and free non-destructive, graphical disk partitioning tool? Yes, such a thing does exist: Its GParted, short for Gnome Partition Editor, an open-source tool for Linux. Okay, so most of you aren't Linux users--why should you care? Well, because GParted will resize your FAT32 and NTFS partitions (as well as about 10 other formats) and it comes in install-free LiveCD and USB drive versions. That means you can stick it in your CD-ROM or USB port, make your partition changes, reboot, and be done with it. The LiveCD and USB versions weigh less than 29MB, or if you're already running Linux, GParted by itself weighs in under 500kb.
The good folks
at Frozen Tech will gladly sell you a burned disc of your favorite Linux
distro, pretty much at cost. They also keep several lists of LiveCD's, each one geared to a specific purpose. For
instance, there's the firewall list, with NetBoz and redWall on it. I have an old machine in the garage that is lacking
an HD, and so I'm going to burn a few of the gaming CD's for it. The Live CD games list
includes LLGP, GamesKnoppix, and Morphix, among others. Can anyone suggest any others not on the list?
Monday saw the release of Gentoo Linux
2006.0. I really like Gentoo's version naming scheme. The new version boasts all the upgrades you'd expect,
including KDE 3.4.3 and Gnome 2.12.2, and a 2.6.15 kernel. The new version can be installed from a LiveCD and OSDir.com
has a nice bunch of screenshots of the
install process. It looks pretty slick.
OpenSUSE has always been an odd sort of Linux distribution. It's always been reasonably user friendly, very stable, and quite nicely pulled off the not-so-easy task of being good for new users while offering advanced and power users the flexibility and freedom they require.
Way back in the dark ages of 1993, we were introduced to this thing called email. Email in the olden days was not like email now. All the packets traveled uphill no matter where they were going, and usually there was a good three or four feet of snow on the internet backbone. We used these big hulking things called VAX/VMS nodes that were attached to some pretty sweet fourteen inch monochrome VT 100 terminals. There were also these machines that ran something called UNIX, which sounded to us like something that should have been found in the college health center, not the computer lab.
When we 
All right, the headline is a little bit of a lie. Some Linux installs are hairier, take longer, and just aren't as soothing as the one we're about to show you. They do all work approximately the same way, however, and that's just fine for us as a point of illustration.
Ever wish you had your whole desktop on a flash disk? You know what we mean, you take a spreadsheet up to your 'rents, and you realize that they have no program to actually open your spreadsheet with. Or maybe you hop from computer to computer in several offices, and hate the fact that every computer you work on is just different enough to make it difficult to get things done.
The good folks
at 
