Novell releases openSUSE 11.1

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 19 December 2008 18:27

Opinion and Analysis

The latest version of Novell’s Linux distro, openSUSE 11.1, has been released, with 230 new features, improvements to YaST, major updates to GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org, a new license and plenty more.

For those thinking that Ubuntu equals Linux, there are actually more than 200 Linux distributions, with Ubuntu simply being the distribution that gets much of the publicity.

Another major player in the Linux space is Novell, a company that is both loved and reviled in the Linux world for its dealings with Microsoft, and its openSUSE version of the Linux platform.

An announcement over at news.opensuse.org shares the news that the new version is here, and as is usual with Linux distros, is available now for free download.

Some of the new features include GNOME 2.24.1, KDE 4.1.3, or the “classic KDE experience” with the older 3.5.10 KDE version.

New features in GNOME 2.24.1 include “tabbed browsing and a new compact view in Nautilus, improvements for Gmail users in Evolution, along with mail templates, a new version of Ekiga, and additional improvements in F-Spot.”

There’s also “a brand-new release of the ever-popular Banshee. Banshee 1.4 sports support for Internet radio, compilation albums, a Now Playing window for video and audio, support for syncing to Android phones, and many other features that make Banshee an excellent multimedia player for the Linux desktop.”

The alternative to the GNOME desktop environment is KDE, and 4.1.3 features the “KDE-PIM suite back in KDE 4, new games, the KSCD CD player, KSystemLog to keep track of system changes, improvements to Dolphin, Konqueror, and Marble integration with OpenStreetMap. KDE has now standardized on PackageKit for its backend, which means both desktops are using the same update stack.”

Unlike Ubuntu 8.10 which came with OpenOffice 2.x, forcing users to upgrade to OpenOffice 3.0 if they wanted it, openSUSE has taken advantage of the fact that it is being released several weeks after OpenOffice 3.0 launched, and so includes the latest version of the most well known free Microsoft Office alternative.

There are plenty of other improvements, but the last that openSUSE highlights in its announcement is improvements to YaST, which includes “a new printer module, redesigned partitioner module, and a security module that allows you to check the overall security of your system.”

Although I'm not a Linux convert by any means, the screenshots for openSUSE 11.1 look pretty cool. As I have more than one computer, I might just download it and install it to see what it's like.

There's one particular diehard Linux fan that reads iTWire who would be horrified that I might download it and actually like it.

So, with him in mind (and he certainly knows who he is, to a "T") I'm going to start the download now, wipe the Windows 7 pre-beta loaded onto that machine, install openSUSE instead, and give it a go. Just to see what it's like. It is free, after all!