From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia openSUSE
openSUSE
Main article: SUSE Linux distributions openSUSE ( /ˌoʊpənˈsuːzə/) is a general purpose oper-
openSUSE ating system built on top of the Linux kernel, developed
by the community-supported openSUSE Project and
sponsored by SUSE. After Novell acquired SUSE Linux in
January 2004,[2] Novell decided to release the SUSE Linux
Professional product as a 100% open source project.[3]
The initial release of the community project was a be-
ta version of SUSE Linux 10.0, and as of November 16,
2011 the current stable release is openSUSE 12.1.
Overview
In openSUSE the openSUSE Project community, spon-
sored by SUSE, develops and maintains SUSE Linux distri-
butions components. openSUSE is the successor to "SuSE
Linux Professional".
Beyond the distribution, the openSUSE Project pro-
vides a web portal for community involvement. The com-
munity assists in developing openSUSE collaboratively
openSUSE 12.1 with KDE SC 4.7 with representatives from Novell by contributing code
through the openSUSE Build Service, writing documen-
Company / openSUSE Project
developer tation, designing artwork, fostering discussion on open
mailing lists and in Internet Relay Chat channels, and
OS family Unix-like improving the openSUSE site through its wiki interface.
Working state Current (12.1) Novell markets openSUSE as the best, easiest distribution
for all users.[4]
Source model Free and open source software
Like most Linux distributions, openSUSE includes
Initial release December 2006 (2006-12) both a default graphical user interface (GUI) and a com-
mand line interface option. During installation, the user
Latest stable 12.1 / November 16, 2011 (2011-11-16)
release may choose among KDE SC, GNOME, LXDE and Xfce GUIs.
openSUSE supports thousands of software packages
Marketing Consumer, Small Business, Development, across the full range of Free software / open source de-
target Developers
velopment.
Available English, German, many others
language(s)
language(s)
History
Update ZYpp (YaST)
method
Company history
Package RPM Package Manager: RPM, YaST2 One-
Further information: SUSE Linux distributions#History
manager Click Install: YMP File
Supported IA-32, x86-64 Product history
platforms
In the past, the SUSE Linux company had focused on re-
Kernel type Monolithic (Linux) leasing the SuSE Linux Personal and SuSE Linux Profes-
Default user KDE Plasma Desktop[1]
sional box sets which included extensive printed doc-
interface umentation that was available for sale in retail stores.
The company’s ability to sell an open source product was
License GNU GPL and others
largely due to the closed-source development process
Official www.opensuse.org used. Although SUSE Linux had always been open prod-
website uct licensed with the GPL, it was only freely possible to
retrieve the source code of the next release 2 months af-
1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia openSUSE
ter it was ready for purchase. SUSE Linux strategy was to containing additional proprietary software and an
create a technically superior Linux distribution with the additional CD containing files for
large number of employed engineers, that would make internationalization (less common languages) are
users willing to pay for their distribution in retail also available. This version does not include any
stores.[5] technical assistance, nor printed manuals.
Since the acquisition by Novell in 2003 and with the • openSUSE : Users are able to purchase openSUSE box
advent of openSUSE this has been reversed: starting with from www.open-slx.com. The box can be ordered at
version 9.2, an unsupported 1 DVD ISO image of SUSE open-slx.com It contains a DVD-9 (dual-layer)
Professional was made available for download as well as comprising the 32-bit and 64, which detects the right
a bootable Live DVD evaluation. The FTP server contin- architecture during boot time. The second DVD is a
ues to operate and has the advantage of "streamlined" KDE-live-system for testing and rescue and also
installs: Only downloading packages the user feels they provides the non-open-source software. The box is
need. The ISO has the advantages of an easy install pack- delivered with printed documentation and with 90
age, the ability to operate even if the user’s network card days user support via email or phone. Since 2009
does not work "out of the box", and less experience need- open-slx is producing the Retail Edition also named
ed (i.e., an inexperienced Linux user may not know Box.
openSUSE Box open-slx includes balsam extensions.
whether or not to install a certain package, and the ISO DVD2 comes as 32 bit KDE Live-DVD, also including
offers several preselected sets of packages). the non-oss addon repositories.
The initial stable release from the openSUSE Project, • openSUSE : There is also a small ISO to install
SUSE Linux 10.0, was available for download just before openSUSE directly from FTP (network install). There
the retail release of SUSE Linux 10.0. In addition, Novell are mirrors on the two different FTP trees: one for
discontinued the Personal version, renaming the Profes- open-source packages (OSS), a second for non-open-
sional version to simply "SUSE Linux", and repricing source packages or whose license is restrictive (non-
"SUSE Linux" to about the same as the old Personal ver- oss). The FTP can be used to complement the
sion. As of version 10.2, the SUSE Linux distribution was Download and Retail editions.
officially renamed to openSUSE.[6][7] • openSUSE : This is the continuous ongoing
Over the years, SuSE Linux has gone from a status of development version, from which the development
a distribution which includes proprietary software, with team take out regular snapshots (Milestones and RC)
restrictive, delayed publications (2 months of waiting for to get the stable openSUSE.
those who had not bought the box, without ISOs avail- • openSUSE : Rolling release, in which new stable
able, but installation available via FTP) and a closed de- versions of packages are made available as soon as
velopment model to a free distribution model with im- they are released.
mediate and freely availability for all and transparent
and open development.[8] Its popularity continues to
grow: as of May 2010, for example, patch download sta-
Features
tistics show more than two million unique installations
of openSUSE 11.1 and 11.2 alone,[9] with the largest num- YaST Control Center
bers located in Germany (28%) and the United States Main article: YaST
(14%). SUSE includes an installation and administration pro-
On April 27, 2011 Attachmate completed its acqui- gram called YaST which handles hard disk partitioning,
sition of Novell. Attachmate split Novell into two au- system setup, RPM package management, online up-
tonomous business units, Novell and SUSE. Attachmate dates, network and firewall configuration, user adminis-
has no plans to change the relationship between SUSE tration and more in an integrated interface. YaST also in-
(formerly Novell) and the openSUSE project. tegrates with SaX2 to help users handle their graphics
card and monitor, touch displays, and even additional
monitors with Xinerama. In more recent times, many
Distribution more YaST modules have been added, including one for
openSUSE is fully and freely available for immediate Bluetooth support. It also controls all software applica-
download, and is also sold in retail box to the general tions.
public. It comes in several editions for the x86 and x86-64
architectures (as for version 11.4): AutoYaST
• openSUSE : This is the freely downloadable ISO Main article: YaST
version, available from the openSUSE downloads AutoYaST is part of YaST2 and is used for automatic in-
page. It is available as a Live-CD version (KDE4 or stallation. The configuration is stored in an XML file and
GNOME) which can be installed on the hard disk, or the installation happens without user interaction.
as a more complete single layer DVD-5. A CD
2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia openSUSE
ZYpp package management boxed retail package, with certain bundled software only
included in the retail package.[12]
Main article: ZYpp
On May 11, 2006, the openSUSE Project released SUSE
ZYpp (or libzypp) is a Linux software management en-
Linux 10.1, with the mailing list announcement identify-
gine which has a powerful dependency resolver and a
ing Xgl, NetworkManager, AppArmor and Xen as promi-
convenient package management API.
nent features.[13]
For their third release, the openSUSE Project re-
Build Service named their distribution, releasing openSUSE 10.2 on De-
Main article: openSUSE Build Service cember 7, 2006. Several areas that developers focused
The openSUSE Build Service provides software develop- their efforts on were reworking the menus used to
ers with a tool to compile, release and publish their soft- launch programs in KDE and GNOME, moving to ext3 as
ware for many distributions, including Mandriva, Ubun- the default file system, providing support for internal
tu, Fedora and Debian. It typically simplifies the packag- readers of Secure Digital cards commonly used in digital
ing process, so developers can more easily package a sin- cameras, improving power management framework
gle program for many distributions, and many openSUSE (more computers can enter suspended states instead of
releases, making more packages available to users re- shutting down and starting up) and the package man-
gardless of what distribution version they use. It is pub- agement system. This release also featured version 2.0 of
lished under the GPL.[10] Mozilla Firefox.
The fourth release, openSUSE 10.3, was made avail-
Desktop innovation able as a stable version on October 4, 2007.[14] An over-
haul of the software package management system (in-
Xgl and Compiz cluding support for 1-Click-Install), legal MP3 support
On January 2, 2006, SUSE developer David Reveman an- from Fluendo and improved boot-time are some of the
nounced Xgl, an X server architecture designed to take areas focused on for this release.
advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL
drivers, layered on top of OpenGL via glitz. Compiz, one 11.x Series
of the first compositing window managers for the X Win-
openSUSE 11.0 was released on June 19, 2008. It includes
dow System that is able to take advantage of this OpenGL-
the latest version of GNOME and two versions of KDE (the
acceleration, was also released.
older, stable 3.5.9 and the newer 4.0.4).[15][16] It comes in
KDE Desktop innovations three freely downloadable versions: a complete installa-
tion DVD (including GNOME, KDE3, and KDE4), and two
SUSE has been a leading contributor to the KDE project
Live CDs (GNOME, and KDE4 respectively). A KDE3 Live CD
for many years, and now SUSE sponsors more developers
was not produced, however, due to limited resources.[16]
to work directly within KDE than any other distribution.
Package management and installation were made signifi-
Hence, SUSE’s contributions in this area have been very
cantly faster with ZYpp.[17]
wide-ranging, and affecting many parts of KDE such as
openSUSE 11.1 was released on December 18, 2008.
kdelibs and KDEBase, Kontact, and kdenetwork. Other
Updated software includes GNOME 2.24.1, KDE 4.1.3 + KDE
notable projects include:
3.5.10, OpenOffice.org 3.0, VirtualBox 2.0.6, Compiz 0.7.8,
• KNetworkManager – a front-end to
Zypper 1.0.1, continued improvement in the software up-
NetworkManager.
date stack, X.Org 7.4, Xserver 1.5.2 and Linux kernel
• Kickoff – a new K menu for KDE Plasma Desktop.
2.6.27.7.[18]
GNOME innovations openSUSE 11.2[19] was released on November 12,
The Ximian group became part of Novell, and in turn 2009. It includes KDE 4.3, GNOME 2.28, Mozilla Firefox
made and continued several contributions to GNOME 3.5, OpenOffice.org 3.1, improved social network support,
with applications such as F-Spot, Novell Evolution and updated filesystems such as Ext4 as the new default and
Banshee. The GNOME desktop now uses the slab instead support for Btrfs, installer support for whole-disk en-
of the classic double-panelled GNOME menu bars. cryption, significant improvements to YaST and zypper,
and all ISO images are hybrid and now support both USB
and CD-ROM boot.[20][21]
Releases openSUSE 11.3 was released on July 15, 2010. It in-
cludes KDE 4.4.4, GNOME 2.30.1, Mozilla Firefox 3.6.6,
10.x Series OpenOffice.org 3.2.1, support for the Btrfs filesytem and
The initial stable release from the openSUSE Project was support for LXDE. It also updates the Linux kernel to ver-
SUSE Linux 10.0, released on October 6, 2005.[11] This was sion 2.6.34.[20]
released as a freely downloadable ISO image and as a
3
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia openSUSE
Color Meaning
Red Release no longer supported
Green Release still supported
Blue Future release
openSUSE 11.4 was finished on March 3, 2011 and re-
leased on March 10, 2011. It includes KDE 4.6.0, GNOME
Gallery
2.32.1, Mozilla Firefox 4.0 beta 12, and switched from
OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice 3.3.1. It updates the Linux
kernel to version 2.6.37.[22]
Version history
The openSUSE project aims to release a new version
every eight months. It supports each release with critical
updates for two years from the release date. Starting with
version 11.2, critical updates will be provided for two re-
leases plus two months, which at the current release cy-
cle of 8 months would result in a support lifetime of 18
months.[23][24]
• openSUSE 12.1,
KDE 4.7
System requirements
openSUSE 11.3 has full support for 32-bit i586 and 64-bit
x86-64 PC hardware. Official support for PowerPC (PPC)
processors was dropped after openSUSE 11.1,[27] though • openSUSE 11.4,
an automatid PPC build is still made from Factory snap- KDE Plasma
shots. The basic requirements for non-PPC hardware is as
follows:[28]
• CPU: Intel Pentium 1–4 or Xeon; AMD Duron, Athlon,
Athlon XP, Athlon MP, Athlon 64, Sempron or
Opteron
• RAM: 256 MB minimum, 512 MB recommended
• Hard drive: 500 MB for minimal system; 2.5 GB
recommended for standard system
The actually achievable minimum specs differ. Older
processors that still belong to the i586 family are usable,
for example the AMD K6-2. When excess language/trans-
lation files and documentation are removed and X is not
needed, decent console-based router systems can be
made using 300 MB disk space. Most console workloads • openSUSE 11.3,
also cope with 128 MB RAM at the cost of increased swap KDE SC 4.4
activity in tight situations. • openSUSE 11.3,
GNOME 2.30
• openSUSE 11.2,
KDE 4.3
4
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia openSUSE
Project Name Version Release date Kernel version
S.u.S.E. Linux 3/94 1994-03-?? 1.0.0
(Slackware based) 7/94 1994-07-?? 1.0.9
11/94 1994-11-?? ?.?.?
4/95 1995-04-?? 1.2.9
8/95 1995-08-?? ?.?.?
11/95 1995-11-?? 1.2.13
S.u.S.E. Linux 4.2 1996-05-?? 1.2.13
4.3 1996-09-?? ?.?.?
4.4 1997-05-?? ?.?.?
5.0 1997-07-?? 2.0.30
5.1 1997-10-?? 2.0.32
5.2 1998-03-23 2.0.33
5.3 1998-09-10 2.0.35
SuSE Linux 6.0 1998-12-21 2.0.36
6.1 1999-04-07 2.2.6
6.2 1999-08-12 2.2.10
6.3 1999-11-25 2.2.13
6.4 2000-03-09 2.2.14
7.0 2000-09-27 2.2.16
7.1 2001-01-24 2.2.18
7.2 2001-06-15 2.4.4
7.3 2001-10-13 2.4.9
8.0 2002-04-22 2.4.18
8.1 2002-09-30 2.4.19
8.2 2003-04-07 2.4.20
SUSE Linux 9.0 2003-10-15 2.4.21
9.1 2004-04-23 2.6.4
9.2 2004-10-25 2.6.8
9.3 2005-04-16 2.6.11
10.0 2005-10-06 2.6.13
10.1 2006-05-11 2.6.16
10.1 remastered[25] 2006-10-13 2.6.16
openSUSE 10.2 2006-12-07 2.6.18
10.3 2007-10-04 2.6.22
11.0 2008-06-19 2.6.25
11.1 2008-12-18 2.6.27
11.2 2009-11-12 2.6.31
11.3 2010-07-15[20] 2.6.34
11.4 2011-03-10 2.6.37
5
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia openSUSE
12.1 2011-11-16[26] 3.1.0
• openSUSE 11.2, • openSUSE 11.0,
GNOME 2.28 KDE 3.5
• openSUSE 11.1, • openSUSE 11.0,
KDE 4.1 GNOME
• openSUSE 11.1, • openSUSE 10.3,
KDE 3.5 GNOME.
• openSUSE 11.1, • openSUSE 10.3,
GNOME 2.24 KDE 3.
• openSUSE 11.0,
KDE 4.0
6
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia openSUSE
08/opensuse-community-konfesses-love-for-kde-
makes-it-default.ars.
[2] "Novell Completes Acquisition of SUSE LINUX".
Novell Press Release. January 13, 2004.
http://www.novell.com/news/press/
item.jsp?id=24&locale=en_US. Retrieved
2006-01-13.
[3] Tina Gasperson (August 3, 2005). "Novell frees SUSE
Professional under new branding". NewsForge.
http://os.newsforge.com/os/05/08/03/
1246236.shtml. Retrieved 2006-01-13.
[4] "Frequently Asked Questions". opensuse.org.
http://en.opensuse.org/
Frequently_Asked_Questions. Retrieved
2007-01-13.
[5] Managing Firm-Sponsored Open Source
See also Communities masters thesis
• openSUSE Project [6] "SUSE Linux 10.2 Alpha2 Release - and distribution
• SUSE Linux distributions rename". opensuse.org. http://lists.opensuse.org/
• YaST opensuse-announce/2006-07/msg00001.html.
• ZYpp Retrieved 2008-04-27.
• openSUSE Build Service [7] "SUSE Linux Becomes openSUSE". slashdot.org.
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/13/
1547257. Retrieved 2008-03-03.
References [8] openSUSE Guiding Principles
[1] Ryan Paul (2009-08-21). "openSUSE community [9] openSUSE statistics
konfesses love for KDE, makes it default". Ars [10] [opensuse-announce] Complete openSUSE Build
technica. Condé Nast Digital. Service under GPL available
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/
7
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia openSUSE
[11] CowboyNeal (October 5, 2006). "SUSE 10.0 OSS [18] openSUSE 11.1 Released!
Released". Slashdot. http://linux.slashdot.org/ [19] "openSUSE 11.2 Review". http://linuxcritic.com/
article.pl?sid=05/10/06/2157223. Retrieved stories/33-openSUSE-11.2-Review-and-
2007-01-13. Commentary.html.
[12] Joe Harmon (September 19, 2005). "Packages on the [20] ^ Bryen Yunashko (July 15, 2010). "openSUSE 11.3
retail version and not the OSS version of SUSE is here!". opensuse-announce mailing list.
Linux 10.0". Novell.com. http://www.novell.com/ http://news.opensuse.org/2010/07/15/
coolsolutions/tip/16015.html. Retrieved opensuse-11-3-is-here/. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
2007-01-13. [21] "OpenSUSE 11.2". http://en.opensuse.org/
[13] Andreas Jaeger (May 11, 2006). "SUSE Linux 10.1 OpenSUSE_11.2. Retrieved 2009-10-05.
Release". opensuse-announce mailing list. [22] openSUSE 11.4 Repository
http://lists.opensuse.org/archive/opensuse- [23] Michael Loeffler (August 14, 2009). "Change in
announce/2006-May/msg00002.html. Retrieved maintenance for openSUSE 11.2 and future
2007-01-13. versions". opensuse-announce mailing list.
[14] Francis Giannaros (October 4, 2007). "Announcing Retrieved 2009-11-10.
openSUSE 10.3 GM". openSUSE News. [24] "openSUSE Lifetime".
http://news.opensuse.org/?p=400. Retrieved [25] [opensuse-announce] SUSE Linux 10.1
2007-10-08. "Remastered" available
[15] "openSUSE 11.0 KDE4 inclusion". [26] Portal 12.1: openSUSE 12.1 will be released in 27
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/bweber/entry/ days on Wednesday, the 16th of November 2011
opensuse_110_kde4. [27] DistroWatch: openSUSE
[16] ^ "KDE with Stephan Binner". [28] openSUSE 11.3: Hardware Requirements
http://news.opensuse.org/2008/06/17/sneak-
peeks-at-opensuse-110-kde-with-stephan-binner/.
[17] "Sneak Peeks at openSUSE 11.0: Package
External links
Management". http://news.opensuse.org/2008/ • openSUSE Project official website
06/06/sneak-peeks-at-opensuse-110-package-
management-with-duncan-mac-vicar/.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OpenSUSE&oldid=474045185"
Categories:
• KDE
• Novell
• SUSE Linux
• RPM-based Linux distributions
• X86-64 Linux distributions
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