Reviews of openSUSE

1. 
   radelahunt

   Reviewing 12.1 Milestone 3 (Aug 30, 2011)

   OpenSUSE 11.4 is very nice. It works as advertised, and does a great job. The only problem I ever ran into in my entire time using it was when choosing to encrypt only /home and swap: it does not populate /etc/crypttab so you are greeted when you first boot it in this configuration with an init 1 level "some partitions did not mount" etc message. Simply log into this, go populate /etc/crypttab, and ctrl+D and it reboots and then no longer has that issue.
   
   It's fantastic, and I use it on all my computers. I would highly recommend it! :)
2. 
   mancubs

   Reviewing 11.4 (Apr 12, 2011)

   It rocks compared to w 7 u Microsoft you suck
3. 
   DudeBoyz

   Reviewing 11.4 (Mar 15, 2011)

   The 11.4 final seems to have fixed just about all the problems I have had with the milestones. It works great with Virtual Box 4.x and includes the latest Firefox, LibreOffice and other key apps. Improved setup, improved screen / resolution support and an improved default desktop configuration all add up to a nicely updated final version. I'm glad they seem to have pulled it together for the final release. It was a LONG road, but it looks like they pulled it off. Thankfully.
4. 
   DrTeeth

   Reviewing 11.4 (Mar 12, 2011)

   I have been spoilt by Linux Mint
   
   The final of Suse is a slow dog by comparison and has an unfinished edge to it.
5. 
   DudeBoyz

   Reviewing 11.4 Milestone 5 (Dec 29, 2010)

   Milestone 5 of 6 is the latest one, and they've made some tweaks to the default environment. Some graphical flair (glowing windows and such) but it seems to make it feel sluggish without actually adding much to the mix. In fact, in apps like Gimp, the "glow" bleeds into the 3 panels when they are put side by side, and that is distracting and a bit annoying. It also defaults to single-click mouse mode, which given that KDE is sort of a rip of Windows, leaves Suse the odd-man out. It also seems to have an odd bug where if I right-click on an app in the menu and choose it to "add to panel", clicking on that icon does not launch the app (gimp for instance), while it does in Mandrake 2010.2. If I just drag and drop the icon from the menu to the taskbar/panel, then it works as expected. Minor annoyance, but still, it lends substance to the feeling that Suse does something with the interface that is just not standard and not as stable and predictable as KDE should be.
   
   It does have more cutting edge apps, such as Firefox 4.0b7, LibreOffice 3.3.0 m17 and Gimp 2.6.11, and that is pretty nice if you prefer the latest and greatest, though I do wish they had both 3.6.1.x and 4.x installed so you could run either one while you wait for add-ons to be updated, etc.
   
   It also still has the problem with resolution under VBox that I mentioned earlier, which is a real problem for me. Latest Mandrake 2010.2 worked 100% with VBox and I was able to choose 1400x1050 and other resolutions there no sweat, but not with Suse 11.4 M5 - still.
   
   Mixed bag for me. Mandrake is certainly more stable and functional right after install for me, and frankly, 11.3 is much more reliable and workable than 11.4 has been to date. I'm not sure where the problem lies, but I wish the developers were able to pay some more attention to reliability and functionality over cutting edge tweaks and the like.
   
   I like OpenSuse, but unless you are a bleeding edge tweak-geek, I just can't recommend 11.4 M5 at this stage. Perhaps it will get there, but with only 1 more Milestone before the final release, they have a lot of work to do in very little time in order to make that happen.
   
   So, Mandrake 2010.2 for productivity, and Suse 11.4 M5 for the adventurous. 3 Stars for now, even though I do appreciate the distribution in principle and am grateful they keep working on it and providing it free to users. I just want it to go forward instead of sideways in terms of development.

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