(K)Ubuntu to OpenSuSe – My Experience
I was using Ubuntu in my laptop for a long time and then moved to Kubuntu recently. Both Ubuntu and Kubuntu didn’t recognize my built in web camera. After I read that OpenSuSe recognized the webcam for Daniel Aleksandersen, I thought I would give that a try without an idea of how painful it was going to be.
I downloaded the DVD ISO file from OpenSuSe’s website. I then started the installation. The installation went fine. It was pretty smooth and user friendly. Once installed and logged in, I was welcomed with a 800*600 screen. OpenSuSe installed the generic driver for my ATI videocard by default, just like Ubuntu. I then installed the ATI’s driver and rebooted the system and got the nice default screen size.
YAST is the installation and configuration tool for OpenSuSe. It might be easy for people using it from day 1, but it wasn’t easy for me. I got used to apt-get and synaptic so much, I had hard time getting YAST updated with latest repositories and then installing the softwares.
I then installed Smart Package Manager, since I read that it’s easier to use and similar to apt-get. I then used the post install script to install flash player, java etc. I didn’t select option 1 which installs additional repos for YAST. I’m not sure what went wrong after installing that, but YAST was giving null pointer exception whenever I started it or whenever i tried to run autoupdate. I couldn’t run Smart too after that. I tried rebooting the system and also some suggestion given in the forum. Nothing worked and I had to reinstall OpenSuSe for the second time.
I reinstalled the system the second time. I logged back in again, installed the proprietary ATI driver, got my resolution back. I then went to additional YAST package repositories page and added most of the repos given there. Once I added those, YAST updater told me there are 43+ updates available. I was prompted several times regarding some kernel updates (2 updates). Though I clicked the update button, it was coming back again with the same set (2) updates. After 5 or 6 attempts, I canceled it. I then rebooted my system to make sure the updates are all installed, but when the system rebooted, all I got was the command prompt. The graphical manager was gone. The reason was, the grub showed Windows and some Kernel version as option instead of OpenSuSe and Windows as option. One of the update (that kept coming up again and again as explained before) from the repos I added screwed up the installation. I couldn’t get the graphical manager to get to work.
I reinstalled OpenSuSe for the 3rd time. I installed the ATI driver again. I didn’t add those extra repositories given in additional YAST package repositories page. I ran the post install script and selected option 1 to install the extra repositories. It took a long time for the script to complete. I think it added a lot, but I didn’t check. Once it was done, I rebooted the system to make sure it didn’t screw up and thank goodness, it wasn’t.
I still didn’t get time to check if OpenSuSe recognized my webcam or not. I’m using it for the past 3-4 days and I can say I like it 50-50. I like few things and I don’t like some.
Some things I like:
I like the boot screen and the login manager. It’s all blue and the login manager is simple and elegant.
I love the start up menu. It’s integrated with beagle desktop search. There are 5 tabs namely, Favorites – which lists commonly used applications, History – history of recently used applications, Computer – your hard drive, network drive information, Applications – Links to all applications and Leave – Logging off, Shutting down etc. The tabs change as you move your mouse over each tabs. Getting to the application you want through the application menu (if it’s not in your favorite menu) might be little cumbersome, but you can use the search box on top if you know the application name.
Some things I don’t like:
There’s no progress meter while booting or while logging in.
KNetworkManager icon disappears and don’t connect (even though it runs in the background) if your taskbar is set to hide automatically. I have to kill the KNetworkManager using the terminal and restart it. It works fine if you don’t hide your taskbar. It’s more of KDE bug than OpenSuSe since I had this problem with Kubuntu too.
Installing softwares. YAST is not easy to use if you are used to apt-get or synaptic. With Ubuntu, you’ll have the basic repos added and you can just uncomment other repos in the sources.list file if you want to use them. When I opened the list in YAST, there was nothing there. I had to manually add all the repos. Another pain is, it uses the DVD to install the software each time. I have to have the dvd all the time if I want to install any application. I don’t have time to find out how to disable that. I can do it easily in Ubuntu by editing the sources.list file.
I couldn’t get Firestarter to work. There are 2 links to download the file for SuSe 9.3 and 9.2 and both links don’t work. I couldn’t get it to compile from source.
I don’t remember anything more as I don’t have my laptop with me now. I’ll write more about that whenever I find something.
Technorati tags: Open SuSe, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Firestarter, KDE, KNetworkManager, YAST, APT, Synaptic
t take pleasure in seeing Opensuse sinking in reviews while Ubuntu trumps many of its rivals, it does make you think. Ubuntu becomes the codebase of many other Linux distributions. Here is yet another reminder that Opensuse needs to get its act together fast. It is no longer the distribution of choice, which is a status it could probably boast a couple of years ago. (K)Ubuntu to OpenSuSe – My Experience Installing softwares. YAST is not easy to use if you are used to apt-get or synaptic. With Ubuntu,
Since you are a KDE user that likes simple elegance and the SUSE menu, might I recommend Sabayon Linux. Version 3.3 should be out in the next week and will have all the functionality you desire in addition to gentoo’s portage.
Just my two cents.
automan
Thanks for your suggestion. I’ll give it a try when I get time.
I also like the new style SuSE Kickoff menu, but didn’t particularly like SuSE after using it for a variety of reasons. The good news is there is a Kubuntu Kickoff package. There’s a Softpedia article about it (with a nice demo of it in Kubuntu), a link to the download, and instructions for installing it:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Kickoff-KDE-Menu-in-Kubuntu-Ubuntu-46601.shtml
If you don’t like the default icon used (not a very good quality Kubuntu gears icon), there are a variety of replacements on KDE-Look.org. My favorite and the one I’m using now is this aqua / blue colored K which is animated when you hover over it:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=53432
Thanks for the info. I’ll try to use opensuse until Kubuntu Feisty final is released and then install Kubuntu along with the kickoff package. Thanks for the info again.
You had serious problems with Suse. What repos did you add?. One must be very careful with that!. If you followed exactly the opensuse.org recomendations (hacking suse is a good guide) you shouldn’t had nothing of that. I’ve done it a couple of times and Suse were always stable (I’m actually updating even KDE , OOo and mozilla products through repos).
I’ve used opensuse from 10.0 and YAST has been for me simply great. I haven’t used Ubuntu for a long time so I don’t know how synaptic really works and I cannot compare, but YAST is pretty effective. You type, you mark and you’re done. Just one advice, if you try again make sure you install everything you are going to need during the OS intallation; this includes ATI drivers, flash and so on. Then configure the official repos (jand you have and entry for that in system>software!) and add Guru’s and Packman.
Go to opensuse.org and opensuse-community.org. It’s suse bible!.
Thank you for the suggestions. The repos I added were from Additional YAST package repositories as stated above. I don’t know which one screwed up my installation. As I wrote, If you are used to YAST, then it’s pretty easy to use, but since I’m used to Synaptic, it’ll take some time for me to get used to YAST.
How do I install ATI drivers during the OS installation? I tried changing the video driver during the installation and didn’t get any option. SuSe detected my Acer laptop as samsung monitor and installed the generic driver.
openSUSE doesn’t include proprietary drivers by default – they are contained in add on repositories. That’s why the ATI (or NVIDIA, for that matter) drivers won’t be automatically installed. Funnily enough, this was actually a Novell decision taken at 10.1
YaST can be very annoying sometimes – especially when it constantly asks for the DVD. This is because there are two settings per repository (remember, the DVD is also a repository just like the online update repositories). You can activate/deactivate the repository itself and you can activate/deactivate refreshing the repository. If the repository is set to refresh, then YaST will take ages every time you want to install or modify a single package, because it checks the entire repository for changes.
There is a new community website called http://www.opensuse-community.org. This is not affiliated with Novell and aims to provide new users with all needed information – such as installing the patent-encumbered codecs (also not included in openSUSE per default), how to enable DVD (libdvdcss is not included) and other issues like proprietary binary drivers and Microsoft TrueType fonts.
openSUSE is a really cool distribution – there is quite a bit of functionality left out for legal reasons, which normally put a damper on new user’s experience with it. The openSUSE community has taken a big hit in credibility because of the Novell Microsoft deal, but I think this was quite unfair – nobody knew about the deal until it was through.
Anyway, check out opensuse-community.org and opensuse.org and you should be able to find all the information you need.
What you said about YAST is true. It’s a pain to install a program since the refresh takes a long time. How do I disable the refresh? I’ll give it a try.
I’ll surely check the opensuse community site. I remember installing libdvdcss2, but still opensuse didn’t play my dvd. I’ll check it again.
Thank you for all the information guys
I too am switching from Ubuntu to openSuse because it is impossible to use my Intel wireless (BG2200 ipw2200) with Ubuntu. The list of complaints from users is long but the kernel and package maintainers are not listening.
So, I downloaded openSuse 10.3 beta1 and hope for a better experience than with Ubuntu. Also, OpenOffice “Base” is not fully functioning in Ubuntu as the form wizzard is not working.
I really hope that openSuse will be the answer to my problems because Ubuntu is not.