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back to article OpenSUSE 12.3: Proof not all Linux PCs are Um Bongo-grade bonkers

The openSUSE project is back on track. This week version 12.3 of the Linux operating system distribution was unleashed, right on time, as a free download. This will be seen as good news after the organisational restructuring and delays that plagued the release of openSUSE 12.2 last year. While 12.2 was delayed, it was worth …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why are the KDE desktop shortcuts penned in?

    I like to run apps less than full-screen, and have instant access to other apps via shortcuts and useful files around the edges of my desktop. Why does KDE pen them into a small area? What was the thinking behind this?

    (this isn't a troll or invitation to flame, I'm genuinely intrigued why this design decision was taken)

    4 2
    1. fandom
      Reply Icon

      Re: Why are the KDE desktop shortcuts penned in?

      They don't, I just tried in KDE 4.9.5 and I can place them wherever I want in the screen, and then you can block them in place so you can't move them by accident

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    2. David Dawson
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: Why are the KDE desktop shortcuts penned in?

      The 'penned' area is a plasma widget, same as any other, called a folder view. The background can contain as many folder view, or any other plasma widgets as you like.

      I tend to have several pinned open on my desktop showing different folders, documents, downloads, dev root etc.

      A single folder view could be expanded to fill the entire desktop, if you so chose, or to fill a small, vertical strip down one side of the window, with another folder down the other side.

      The answer to your question is, thats the default look on startup, its totally modifiable, and very easy to do.

      It actually appears that they would work very well for you :-)

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      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Why are the KDE desktop shortcuts penned in?

        Yup, took me a few moments to work that out when I first saw it.

        Once I'd figured out what was going on[1] and stopped fruitlessly trying to drag things to and from it, it became obvious that it's actually an astonishingly good idea.

        [1] Other "KDE fun" moments include figuring out how to get the bit that shows all the running things back when an errant mouse swipe removes it from the bar at the bottom (it's a "task switcher panel" apparently - the hard bit's figuring out that that's the right one of the multifarious widgets on offer). I thoroughly recommend locking the widgets and such once you have it the way you want it.

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    3. Alan Gauton
      Reply Icon

      Re: Why are the KDE desktop shortcuts penned in?

      It's been a while since I last looked at KDE (4.2?), but you could switch to a more conventional desktop style in KDE as well.

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    4. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why are the KDE desktop shortcuts penned in?

      (OP on this thread)

      Thanks for all the replies.

      I guess the real answer is : download a KDE distro and play with it :)

      Cheers anyway

      4 0
  2. Chemist

    "called a folder view."

    Yes, I tend to have several on my desktop, regularly used program links in one and regularly used documents and network directories in another

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  3. PabloPablovski
    Thumb Up

    I'm liking KDE more and more again - I'm triple booting Mint 14, kubuntu and W8 and I'm spending most of my time in KDE now - I like the speed and stability it offers over Cinnamon, for example.

    And, if you're a part-time masochist, you can install the rather lovely "homerun" plamsa widget that provides a Unity Dashboard-alike application and file launcher that can be easily switched on and off from the taskbar.

    Only used it for a brief moment - I'm a part-time, part-time masochist - but it's light, fast, pretty and intelligently designed, unlike, err, the alternative.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    There is always something about the way the font looks on Linux, it just does not seem as well done as Windows 7.

    7 16
    1. Nick Ryan Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      That's usually down to the different fonts. Microsoft have invested heavily in producing optimal fonts for their shell and applications and this work pays off as the rendering of the fonts and the fonts themselves are designed to work together.

      If you own a recent copy of Windows and run Linux (for instance, dual booting), then you should be able to copy the system display fonts from Windows to Linux, set the font preferences and see the difference these make for yourself.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        You get what you pay for. Decent fonts are licensable and cost money...

        0 1
    2. h3
      Reply Icon

      Trekrich,

      The main reason was a patent so freetype had to be compiled in a none optimal way. (Think it has expired now though.)

      There is other things that affect it like whether you EDID is right on your monitor. (Some DPI's work far better than others.)

      I still think bitstream looks better (It is on Solaris 10 but not 11 instead of freetype).

      The liberation or Android fonts are fairly good. (Personally I use terminus (Being easy on the eyes is more important to me than anything else)).

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    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      "always something about the way the font looks on Linux"

      With the greatest respect, whilst your underlying comment about Linux fonts [sometimes] looking crap is valid, you may be making several mistakes following on...

      1) Not all Linuxes look the same, because not all Linuxes are the same.

      2) You're commenting about SuSe without apparently having installed it, maybe without using it.

      3) If you'd installed it, you'd know that (at least since V8 while I've been installing and using) it offers you the chance to easily download and install the MS Truetype fonts (and, obviously, agree to the MS licence).

      This is a comfortable, pragmatic, and appropriate solution to the genuine issue which you noted. You won't get this done neatly in a distro which chooses the "no non-free software, ever" policy, and nor do many other distros bother with making it as easy as suse did/does.

      Have a lot of fun.

      Nice article, btw.

      7 1
      1. keithpeter Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        Boffin

        Re: "always something about the way the font looks on Linux"

        "If you'd installed it, you'd know that (at least since V8 while I've been installing and using) it offers you the chance to easily download and install the MS Truetype fonts (and, obviously, agree to the MS licence)."

        Yes, MS core Web fonts help. I found that, on my particular hardware (GT520 card, AOC cheapo 1080p monitor), I had to install nvidia proprietary drivers as the nouveau driver does seem to produce fonts with 'fat' or 'thick' strokes. Otherwise, nouveau is entirely usable for my purposes.

        I also had to switch on the subpixel rendering (Lizard | System Settings | Application Appearance | Fonts | Use anti-aliasing set to 'enabled' then click Configure and select appropriate combination for your monitor/card).

        The result seems pretty close to Ubuntu with nvidia proprietary drivers to me. Running RC2 updated to current. May consider reinstalling from final DVD when the servers have cooled down a bit. KDE has certainly moved on since I last tried it out!

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    4. Paul 135
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      Agreed, there are some hideous fonts by default on Linux. Thankfully, however, KDE will soon be switching by default to a new default Oxygen font which seems to address the issue as IMO is better than any other OS font:

      http://code.newtypography.co.uk/oxygen-sans-0-2-3-in-progress/

      It can't come soon enough!

      4 0
    5. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Droid fonts

      >"There is always something about the way the font looks on Linux"

      Try the Droid font package - you'll be pleasantly surprised.

      4 1
    6. jason 7
      Reply Icon

      Hmmm as a dyed in the wool Windows user I've always liked how fonts look on linux over Windows. Even on a VM in Windows they still look nice and smooth.

      Windows 7 looks fine but 8 looks like the Cleartype has been switched off (even though it says its on).

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      1. Don Mitchell
        Reply Icon

        I get the feeling Win8 is trying to minimize UI computation. Do they think only ARM processors are going to exist in the future? It's just odd, because of those processors will eventually have some muscle. As one of the inventors of Cleartype, it's a bit annoying if they are abandoning it.

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        2. Androgynous Crackwhore
          Reply Icon
          Windows

          "As one of the inventors of Cleartype..."

          Eh? Did MS "invent" your arse too? Perhaps if their marketing department tell you they did, often enough, it'll become true?

          An informed and contemporary account of this "invention" from Steve Gibson: http://www.grc.com/ctwho.htm

          The only thing the Microsoft Corporation Inc "invented" about "Cleartype™" is the branding.

          6 2
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "As one of the inventors of Cleartype..."

            Microsoft might not have been first with Sub Pixel rendering, but what Cleartype does with it is novel, clever and is covered by no less than 10 patents. The Apple sub pixel rendering patent is listed as prior art in the Microsoft patent applications.

            Unfortunately, as usual Mr Gibson doesn't know what he is talking about: http://david.freetype.org/cleartype-patents.html

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            2. This post has been deleted by its author

            3. Paul 135
              Reply Icon

              Re: "As one of the inventors of Cleartype..."

              Subpixel rendering is now back in freetype again. However, it still doesn't look as good as it could by default. As others have mentioned, the remaining Infinality tweaks do improve things a bit.

              You can find Infinality-patched freetype on the Open Build Service at software.opensuse.org under the freetype-infinality package. However, from what I read, the most authoritative repo may be at: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/namtrac:/subpixel/.

              Personally, I then run the scripts included with infinality in /etc/fonts/infinality and set the rendering type to the Windows 7 style, and it looks great along with the kde-oxygen-fonts, webcore-fonts, webcore-fonts-vista, and google-droid-fonts packages.

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    7. BlueGreen
      Reply Icon

      Bad UI decisions may be part of the problem

      A couple of years ago I installed ubuntu on a VM. One of the first things I did was set the desktop background to be a light colour instead of the default (and doubtless cool) dark. There are good physiological reasons for this, I'll find a link if you're interested.

      Problem was, the font for item descriptions on the desktop was light, to go well against the dark background, but I couldn't find a way of altering that (curiously, in windows if you set a light desktop, the font is automatically flipped to dark. Quite neat). I know there would be something somewhere to do it (xorg.conf?) but I have a life and wanted to keep it.

      So I reverted the colour scheme but something looked right ropey about the fonts so I made them dead large (yep, could control size from UI but not colour) and then it was obvious. Some prat had decided to render them in some 3d effect. It looked pretty good large, it looked terrible small, but hell, it was so *cool*.

      Linux UI designers are amateurs. Maybe things have improved.

      2 7
      1. Graham Dawson Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Bad UI decisions may be part of the problem

        A couple of years ago you could have gone to System Settings, clicked on Application Appearance and then on the big thing marked "colours" and adjusted all of these things to your heart's content. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are arguments to be made for grouping the font colours with the typeface settings rather than putting all the colour options in a single place. It might seem logical depending on how you like to organise things.

        Of course windows doesn't do it that way either as far as I can recall.

        The only clear difference between KDE and Windows is that in windows you can access these settings by right-clicking on the desktop which is an advantage, I won't deny it. But it's easy to find these options in KDE. You'd have to be wilfully blind to miss them.

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        1. BlueGreen
          Reply Icon

          Re: Bad UI decisions may be part of the problem @Graham Dawson

          Perhaps I'm wrong but I looked through every option I could find, and spent a fair bit of time doing so. I found some options but they did not cover the desktop font colours - sizes, obviously yes, not colour. If they were that well hidden then there's definitely a UI problem.

          However it was gnome not kde.

          I just fired up a VM with mint (V12 I think, running cinnamon, so not so old) and had a dig around - still couldn't find anything. Quick google for 'cinnamon font colors', top 3 links say you have to edit some css in the .themes folder. The most specifiec one says:

          "

          You have to edit some code to do that.

          Look for the gtk2.0 > [gtkrc] file in the Mint-X or Mint-Z folder (or whatever theme you're using right now).

          Find the part that says "nselected_fg_color:#ffffff" and change it to a hexadecimal value (a color of your choice translated into hex code).

          "

          I can do that continue to thrash through other stupidities, or I can stick with what I know and get some work done (not that windows is looking too clever these days).

          So, have I missed something?

          I notice the desktop fonts still appear to be rendered in poxy 3d, and the ui is still designed by cool people, not those with actual UI credentials.

          I say 'appear to be rendered' because I can't change the size to check, like I did before. Odd. So I google that just now and I get <http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=208&t=102851>:

          "

          In Cinnamon 1.4 and Mint 12, I was sure that the desktop font was changeable in the Cinnamon settings font dialog. In Maya, it doesn't seem to work. I had to install dconf-tools and edit the nautilus desktop font settings there. Was I dreaming that I was able to change it in Cinnamon/Lisa?

          "

          Turns out you need to use dconf. Can't find it. A quick google (do you see a pattern emerging here?) tells me that I need to sudo apt-get install dconf-tools (do you see another pattern here?).

          I recently tried xfce. I almost liked it. Unfortunately there was some really infuriating mouse behaviour - you could alter the speed (I like it fast) but I could find no way of disabling the mouse acceleration (move slow and the mouse almost comes to a stop. Supposed to improve accuracy, just means I continually undershoot).

          I give up on linux desktops. I have work to do.

          Thanks for your feedback BTW, I've been multiply downvoted for that post but you're the only one who's actually explained why they thought I was wrong.

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          1. Paul 135
            Reply Icon
            Linux

            Re: Bad UI decisions may be part of the problem @Graham Dawson

            "However it was gnome not kde."

            There lies your problem.

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    8. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Patches to fix that

      If you don't mind recompiling the SRPM, try out these patches to make it look amazing:

      http://www.infinality.net/blog/infinality-freetype-patches/

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  5. h3

    Opensuse is by and large a much better distro than Ubuntu. (And less bleeding edge than Fedora they don't put stuff they need testing into Opensuse in the same way).

    (It also probably the best distro to run Xen dom0 from - They seem to have some real experience in it. And don't have change for its own sake that breaks stuff like Debian).

    9 3
    1. bailey86
      Reply Icon

      OpenSUSE does is way behind Ubuntu/Debian in terms of packages and default package setups. I've used both extensively.

      'And don't have change for its own sake that breaks stuff like Debian' What, exactly, has been broken in Debian?

      10 10
      1. bailey86
        Reply Icon

        Is this some new Microshill tactic?

        Is this some new Microshill tactic? To promote SUSE/SLES which is easily to worst distro compared to Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat.

        2 19
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

          Downvoted simply because no one should say "xxx is worse than yyy" without saying what their evidence is for this belief.

          11 0
          1. bailey86
            Reply Icon

            Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

            OK - evidence then RE the difference between SUSE and Debian...

            And remember - in production environments we may be looking after dozens of servers - so ease of use is exponentially important. You might have time to faff for days if you only have your one machine - take as long as you like. In a production environment we need to have servers fully set up, hardened, backed up, documented and production ready within hours.

            Want to install Apache ITK - which is a brilliant version of Apache which runs vhosts as assigned users (usually the FTP account)

            On SUSE - you're into recompiling Apache. OpenSUSE there is nothing in the repositories. There are a couple of iffy looking RPM's around - best of luck with that.

            On Debian - apt-get install apache2-mpm-itk

            Want to install etckeeper - a really useful, simple utility for keeping an eye on /etc

            SUSE/SLES - not available in the repositories. And a really tricky tool to set up by yourself in a secure way.

            Debian - apt-get install etckeeper

            Enbling PHP 5.3

            On SLES PHP5.3 is available in the repositories. However, if you use it then YAST gets broken because everytime you add a vhost and restart Apache the PHP module gets disabled. You have to MANUALLY add it back to 'APACHE_MODULES' in '/etc/sysconfig/apache2' and restart Apache.

            On Debian apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5

            Setting up an Apache vhost as default.

            On SUSE/SLES if you set a vhost to be a default host Yast breaks the Apache setup in strange ways - the workaround we used was to set up a vhost on the address aaaaaaaa.xxx.xxx.xxx and set the doc root to /srv/www/htdocs.

            On Debian you just set the ServerAlias.

            Setting up xdebug.

            On SUSE - you're back to recompiling source code.

            On Debian - apt-get install php5-xdebug

            Fail2ban

            On SUSE you might be able to use an external repository and then set it up yourself.

            On Debian - apt-get install fail2ban - and it is installed with sensible defaults.

            PhpMyAdmin

            On SUSE/SLES you need to download the source code, set up hosting space, install, setup etc etc.

            All do-able - but if you have to do it on twelve machines before lunchtime well... good luck with that.

            On Debian - apt-get install phpmyadmin.

            I could go on - but I think you should have the picture by now.

            6 8
            1. vagabondo
              Reply Icon
              Linux

              Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

              This article is about openSUSE-12.3 and has nothin to do with SLES or SLED. The SuSE/openSuSE equivalent of apt is zypper, which is what would be used by an admin. YaST is a graphical interface, used by desktop users.

              etckeeper has not reached version 1 yet. However it is available from the Open Build Service for 1-click install. Php5.3, PhpMyAdmin, and Fail2Ban are all part of the openSUSE-12.3 distribution, and can either be selected at installation, or added with e.g. zypper install phpMyAdmin, or if you prefer

              phpPgAdmin.

              I think bailey86 needs to get the facts and lose the FUD. Is he/she a MS undercover agent?

              10 0
              1. bailey86
                Reply Icon

                Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

                I stand corrected on a few points here - I've reviewed my notes RE OpenSUSE and a couple of the packages were available in the default repositories - others were available by adding extra repositories. My memories were mostly from SLES. BTW - the OpenSUSE version I worked with was 12.1.

                As mentioned, OpenSUSE did need to have extra repositories added for a couple of those packages - and the default setups were not as smooth as Debian - but overall it wasn't too bad. As I said - it's the bad experiences with SLES which coloured my thinking.

                (The place I was working had SLES servers due to a maintenance contract and so I had to switch to SLES).

                BTW - I was originally responding to the comment about Debian breaking stuff - as a server OS I think Debian is difficult to beat. Re-reading that point it seems to be referring to only Xen breaking. Not having experience of Xen I'll can't comment on that point. So I eneded up trying to make the point that SLES is not very good currently - as you say - SLES/SLED are not OpenSUSE.

                And this is a point - should OpenSUSE be used for a server OS? Should OpenSUSE be thought of separately from SLED/SLES? Considering the state of SLES should OpenSUSE be promoted as a server OS on its own?

                My understanding was that OpenSUSE should be thought of as the Fedora version of SLES/SLED - so, free, but not enterprise level. Maybe it's time for openSUSE to release different versions - testing, stable etc and to leave SLES behind. It's the experience with SLES which colours people's (including my) thinking about SUSE in general.

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                1. vagabondo
                  Reply Icon

                  should OpenSUSE be used for a server OS -- @bailey86

                  My understanding was that OpenSUSE should be thought of as the Fedora version of ...

                  Your understanding is so wrong. Fedora is Red Hat's bleeding edge, experimental release. It is to the credit of the underlying 'NIX philosophy that it manages to be at least as resilient and stable as MS's "enterprise ready" releases. Open SUSE is really the descendent of SuSE Professional, and is more staid than Fedora or any of the 'Buntus. It is eminently suited for the workplace, and has its long term support (Evergreen) versions. The installation process has always provided a choice of desktop and server configurations. Unlike Ubuntu et al, who try to take on MS with bling and "user-friendliness", openSUSE's tradition is one of FOSS, stability, and security at the expense of appeal to hobbyist or casual users. SLED and SLES's ancestry is really as Novell's attempt to use GNU/Linux as a replacement for NetWare.

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                  1. Bill the Sys Admin
                    Reply Icon
                    Thumb Up

                    Re: should OpenSUSE be used for a server OS -- @bailey86

                    @vagabondo Very well said.

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              2. Neil B
                Reply Icon
                Facepalm

                Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

                So @bailey86 accuses the article of being written by a Microsoft shill because it praises a distro that he/she considers one of the worst of the bunch, and then @vagabondo accuses @bailey86 of being a Microsoft shill for criticising OpenSUSE.

                I wonder if you people can hear yourselves.

                3 2
                1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
                  Reply Icon

                  Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

                  So @bailey86 accuses the article of being written by a Microsoft shill because it praises a distro that he/she considers one of the worst of the bunch, and then @vagabondo accuses @bailey86 of being a Microsoft shill for criticising OpenSUSE.

                  Indeed. And the Reg continues to refuse to enforce its own rule prohibiting accusations of shilling. Perhaps one wonderful day they shall. In the meantime, assorted idiot commentators, kindly stop it. Calling someone a shill is among the most feeble, tired, and tiresome of insults here. It only demonstrates your own inability to think critically or advance a meaningful argument.

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            2. HTF
              Reply Icon

              Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

              I find it odd you choose Debian as your example, take a look at the Debian 6 repos, there a lot of "out of date" packages even older than those in SUSE. This is because like SUSE they favour stability over bleed edge features. This is not a bad thing but a good thing. They make sure bugs don't get introduced, Ubuntu has this problem all the time because they update their packages too quickly without testing fully for bugs etc.

              Also binary repos are not something to judge a distro on. Any linux server admin worth his salt has no problem compiling from source and wouldn't touch the slow mess that is Apache with a barge pole anyway.

              Plus just to call you out on being simply incorrect on 99% of your points, Apache ITK is in the SUSE repos, so is fail2ban, so is phpmyadin and the php5 stuff works fine through Yast.

              The only thing you mentioned that isn't a one click install is xdebug and you should NEVER run this on a production server anyway, you should run it on your development server so you can profile and debug but it will GREATLY slow down php on a production server.

              So before ranting about how a distro sucks, USE IT FIRST, new versions come with updated repos so moaning about things not being included without first checking the repos is simply moronic.

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              1. bailey86
                Reply Icon

                Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

                Of course we can compile Apache from source, download and setup PhpPgAdmin, manually set up etckeeper, etc. OK if you have only one machine - not so good if you have dozens. If you have to set up six dev servers before lunchtime I think you'd prefer all the tools to be in the repository. And what about future updates? So, for enterprise level I would say that packages being available in the repositories is fairly crucial.

                As mentioned - I'd confused my experience RE OpenSUSE with SLES. After reviewing my notes I conceeded that OpenSUSE had most stuff available in the repositories - some external repositories needed to be added - but no probs.

                I'll agree that for a web server I'd rather run a hand compiled Nginx on BSD. But the devs tend to be the ones who manage their dev/testing/beta/deployment/live copies and they would not want to wait for a sysadmin every time they want a quick vhost set up to test something - also, I don't want to spend all my time setting up vhosts.

                I think that its better to give them the LAMP stack they want and look after it for them - Apache is good enough for most uses. On high load stuff you could use Nginx as a reverse proxy.

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            3. Morten Bjoernsvik
              Reply Icon
              FAIL

              Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

              suse have suse studio, I use it to set up rpms for redhat because my big do it all rpm of our commercial app spec file just fails on RHEL6. After making the spec file through suse studio, it worked. So I develop all my company commercial code in open suse, then when it is finished I verify the code with suse studio and build for centos5/6. Very nice piece of software.

              2 0
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Is this some new Microshill tactic?

          Okay, I'll give you that Debian (and especially deb/apt) is great. But saying that Ubuntu and RHEL of all things is better? I spy a troll...

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      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Just for anyone else who might be wondering (rather than Bailey who, judging by his posts below, is either a troll and/or an idiot, and therefore not worth wasting time with), the "change for its own sake" comment refers to Debian devs fondness for patching perfectly good functionality out of common applications and/or changing the way they work because of some philosophical sense of purity.

        An example that particularly pissed me off was their patching out of Bash the /dev/tcp/ and /dev/udp pseudo-redirects. While I understand the Debian devs point of view, I consider they should have battled it out upstream with the Bash guys, rather than going their own way and breaking scripts and stuff that relied on that functionality.

        I have nothing at all against Debian, I appreciate the effort those guys do, and I collaborate with some of them, but I gradually moved out of it precisely because of this sort of "surprises".

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        1. bailey86
          Reply Icon

          Dear oh dear... aaaaannnnyway.

          As mentioned in another post I made - I responded incorrectly to a post which said OpenSUSE was better than Debian because Debian kept breaking things. This referred to only to Xen being better run on OpenSUSE - which may be the case - I have no real experience of running Xen.

          I then gave a list of problems I'd had with SLES which I'd mixed up with my experience of OpenSUSE. As someone pointed out, OpenSUSE had most of the required tools available as packages (some from external repositories).

          So I'm raising a new point here.

          It seems to me that OpenSUSE is now a better server OS than SLES - which considering how much Novell charge for SLES support is a bit surprising. So, should OpenSUSE be used as the server OS and not SLES? Which brings up another point - if OpenSUSE is to be used as a server OS then where should testing be carried out? Should OpenSUSE have testing/stable branches etc.

          BTW AC 18:32 - you see - this is a discussion where we raise points, correct each other, recount experience, fire off ideas etc. Abuse is not needed - it's just immature.

          2 2
          1. vagabondo
            Reply Icon

            Should OpenSUSE have testing/stable branches -- bailey86

            The experimental/testing branch of openSUSE is called "Factory". Also prior to version releases ther are months of Milestone, Beta and Release Candidates made available for testing and debugging. As stated before there are "Evergreen" long-term support versions. The latest release even includes the KDE-3.5.10 desktop for those that prefer it.

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          2. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            "BTW AC 18:32 - you see - this is a discussion where we raise points, correct each other, recount experience, fire off ideas etc. Abuse is not needed - it's just immature."

            Yes, I see how you "discuss and raise points": http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/1763288

            1 0
  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Nice upgrade but.......

    The wankers at AMD decided that HD4XXX or below is now legacy and we are going to give fuck all support on a chipset that they were flogging only a year or so ago. So no Xserver 1.13 (1.12max) for you matey and you are stuck with the cracker barrel radeon driver instead of FLGRX. Luckily this only affects my laptop as I have Nvidia on other machines because their Linux support is brilliant.

    The fail is for AMD, it's a thumbs up for the for the Suse folks 12.3 release

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    1. The Serpent
      Reply Icon

      Re: Nice upgrade but.......

      One the one hand... "I have Nvidia on other machines because their Linux support is brilliant"

      On the other hand... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/18/torvalds_curses_nvidia/

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nice upgrade but.......

        I've used plenty of Nvidia card and plenty of ATI cards and I know which have given me the most grief under Linux over the years and it certainly isn't Nvidia. I will say one thing ATI don't make the worst graphics chips, that honour goes to the useless twats at S3 graphics who make the most stinking IGP chips ever known to man.

        PS Linus throws his toys out of the pram if the custard is a bit too cold or a bit too hot.

        3 2
    2. eulampios
      Reply Icon

      @Nvidia vs. AMD

      Quite the opposite experience: Nvidia proprietary support is totally f@#ed up, free radeon drivers (as of recent since AMD had straightened things out) are very nice. In particular, disappearing mouse, reliable suspend/resume, Xserver memory leaks and no KMS.

      Well, with AMD cards and the free radeon driver, if things don't work well on a kernel of some version , chances are high that things will improve or get fixed on the kernel of higher versions, which you can easily get and build (or download for Ubuntu system). As a comparison, with Nvidia you gotta suck up and hope they will deign to fix it ..soon. And thanks to Nvidia (and AMD), nouveau is l.y.'s ahead of radeon

      2 0
      1. The Serpent
        Reply Icon

        Re: @Nvidia vs. AMD

        That has been my experience too. I can recall hours jiggling nvidia stuff, often in vain hope (mobile chipsets in particular), but no real problems with ATI/AMD

        3 0
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nice upgrade but.......

      Install Windows then, not some amateur written OS intended for hobbyists.

      You'll find all the driver support you need with a professional OS.

      1 8
      1. eulampios
        Reply Icon

        patching AC

        patching an incorrect statement:

        --Install Windows then, not some amateur written OS intended for hobbyists.

        ++Install Windows then, to see how amateur written OS is intended.

        #Fixed

        2 0
      2. Cipher
        Reply Icon

        Re: Nice upgrade but.......

        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Nice upgrade but.......

        "Install Windows then, not some amateur written OS intended for hobbyists."

        The "hobbyist" line is used by better MS employees everywhere. Can't you guys insert a little original thought in your posts? Or does Redmond have a script you must follow?

        "You'll find all the driver support you need with a professional OS."

        Not having any problems with Mint, in fact the install took care of everything. 1998 is calling, you should answer that phone....

        the J to the C

        "Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on"

        Your perceptions and wishes do not equal reality.

        "Really guys, its over, will someone tell the others, as a server, it has lots of merits"

        It freakin' rules the server world, far beyond "lots of merits...

        "but a desktop OS it is an. utter failure."

        Works fine for me, and many others I suspect...

        " its been fun to play with but today I dont have a linux build working and dont see a place for it as a desktop OS. Mac OS or Windows pick one and do something rather that fix the OS"

        Try some of the help forums, just like windows users do when it eventually breaks on them. There are thousands of people seeking Windows help everyday because it doesn't always "just work."

        People who know what they're doing help them, and Linux users will help you. I am sorry you cannot seem to get a major distro to work. makes me wonder how you would do if handed a blank computer and had to install windows on it the same way. Probably be beyond your reach as well...

        6 1
    4. Davidoff
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      Re: The wankers at AMD decided that HD4XXX or below is now legacy...

      "...and we are going to give fuck all support on a chipset that they were flogging only a year or so ago."

      No, they weren't. The Radeon HD 4000 Series came out 2008 and is out of production since somewhere in 2010.

      Of course that doesn't make their decision to move them to legacy support any better, which is stupid considering Nvidia still supports the Geforce 8 Series which came out 2006 and that cards like the 4870 or 4890 still play latest games at HD resolution just fine.

      1 0
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The wankers at AMD decided that HD4XXX or below is now legacy... @davidoff

        Yes the chips may have gone out of production in 2010 but cards and mobile systems were still being sold by 2011 as stock went out of the supply chain. I don't think 5 years support from ceasing production is unreasonable if they insist on closed source drivers . Do bear in mind this also applies to the windows drivers as they are going nowhere either.

        0 0
    5. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nice upgrade but.......

      Hardly anyone uses Linux though - why should AMD bother?

      0 4
  7. Gary Heard
    Thumb Up

    Just gets better

    I've used openSUSE as my main OS for about 4 years, using MS windows (when I need to ) in a VM. I've seen good and bad releases, this one looks good, installed it on the desktop yesterday and it "just worked". Looks very good in KDE mode, haven't tested Gnome yet, or put it on the laptop. Will back EVERYTHING up before the laptop upgrade, better safe than sorry

    I'm impressed that they have recovered from the problems of last year with what looks to be a very professional polished upgrade

    4 0
  8. Tom_B
    Thumb Up

    KDE Is beautiful

    Having recently decided to have a play with desktop Linux again for the first time in about 5 years, and installed Linux Mint. I must say I'm impressed. I only had to edit xorg.conf once and that was because I was trying to get a windows game working under WINE. Everything just worked.

    And KDE. Wow! It really puts the nonsense UI of Windows 8 to shame. I'm hugely impressed with KDE as a desktop these days. Back in the 3.* days it always felt a bit clunky and looked like it was designed in about 1991 but the most recent version is tremendous.

    If I can get photoshop and itunes working successfully I'll certainly be switching to Linux as my primary OS!

    5 0
    1. exanime
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Re: KDE Is beautiful

      I had always been wary of KDE because people claimed it was too bloated and I was running very standard hardware but then a Phoronix article which actually claimed KDE was the fastest desktop once special effects were turned off (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_1210beta_desktops&num=6) so I decided to give it a try... and I haven't looked back

      It looks super cool, you can do ANYTHING with it (actually sometimes there are just too many options, at times I wonder "who the hell would want to turn x, y, or z on or off?" "why did they bother?"

      I can't run it on my ancient netbook but otherwise it's my weapon of choice

      4 0
  9. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Facepalm

    You missed the

    important question hanging on everyones lips

    "Does it run the steam native client with no hassle?"

    2 1
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You missed the

      Dunno, seen it in the repos. Can't tell you if it's any good though as I was banned by my Wife from games playing under threat of divorce.

      1 0
      1. Marcelo Rodrigues
        Reply Icon
        Joke

        Re: You missed the

        Won't You miss her?

        8 0
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Thumb Up

          Re: You missed the @ Marcelo Rodrigues

          Like it :)

          0 0
          1. ChrisM
            Reply Icon

            Re: You missed the @ Marcelo Rodrigues

            Will it run steam....

            Whay don't you just come out and say 'will it run crysis?'

            0 0
      2. Will Stephenson
        Reply Icon

        Re: You missed the

        Ditto, simply for observing that Day Of Defeat was now available for Linux.

        0 0
    2. Will Stephenson
      Reply Icon
      Go

      Re: You missed the

      Yes, it's in the opensuse games addon repo:

      http://blog.seader.us/2013/03/running-steam-on-opensuse-123.html

      0 0
  10. Blue eyed boy
    Boffin

    Have they finally fixed

    the KNode drag/drop bug?

    0 1
    1. Will Stephenson
      Reply Icon

      Re: Have they finally fixed

      I and my colleagues on the openSUSE team haven't. Upstream KDE might have, but I don't know which bug you mean. Is it one of these: https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=knode%20drag%20drop&list_id=553813 ?

      3 0
  11. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Sniff

    I was a Suse user from v5.1, and I've been tempted to go back now that kde is where it's at. But I'm fond of jfs as a file system, which for some reason Suse stopped supprting some time back. Glad they're back on track though and putting the Novell years behind them.

    2 0
    1. Morten Bjoernsvik
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: Sniff

      >But I'm fond of jfs as a file system, which for some reason Suse stopped supprting some time back.

      JFS is in the 12.3 filesystem list, it is not the default though which is ext4, I myself always uses XFS.

      I've had lots of cheap disks failing, but I've always managed to get xfs_repair to restore the disk into a readable condition. much faster than Spinrite.

      2 0
  12. Cipher
    Happy

    Suse Studio

    I really like and appreciate what they're doing with this. You can roll your distro from their web site.

    Many options, desktop, reps, packages, etc.

    http://susestudio.com/

    6 0
    1. phil dude
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Re: Suse Studio

      The whole openbuild environment is extremely impressive. Especially when you want to hack/build a package without installing everything on your home machine.

      I too moved to Suse some time back, originally as a Redhat refugee , but mostly because we have it everywhere at work, and I have 6 desktops around the world, that all look that same...!

      If there becomes a way to run android apps on a normal opensuse desktop (not Vbox), I would say we had reached a nice state of being...

      P.

      5 0
  13. mattymil
    Thumb Up

    Not bad at all

    I beta tested the gnome version last week. Performance was far better than my Arch or Ubuntu installs.

    0 0
  14. Valeyard
    Unhappy

    Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

    ...oh to be that young and naive again, where the butterflies land on the tulips and the nvidia drivers frolic hand in hand with opensuse

    0 0
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

      Try Windows. 100% support, 100% of the time. Leave these hobbyists to their amateur tinkering.

      1 8
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

        "Try Windows. 100% support, 100% of the time. Leave these hobbyists to their amateur tinkering"

        Try Windows. 0% support, 100% of the time. Leave these hobbyists to get on with it !

        Evening RICHTO/Vogon/Whatever......

        6 1
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

          How droll. Clearly written by someone who thinks partially working hardware is normal or doesn't mind selecting from a restricted list. The truth is that every OEM and service (e.g. Netflix, AMD, Broadcom...) supports Windows, almost none support Linux.

          And there are two reasons for that. You want it all for free. A business paying professionals, providing quality software AND support cannot last long on free. Which is why professional organisations avoid you,.

          Oh yeah, and your sub 1% market share. And there's a reason for that too; your antiquated UI. A CLI! How cute. The1960s called, they want their paradigm back.

          This is wether someone says you don't need to see the CLI on Linux, to which I says bullshit. If you look at any tutorial (assuming you network card actually works) you'll see the CLI. That's game over in the real world .

          Fail on freetard, fail on.

          0 8
          1. Chemist
            Reply Icon

            Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

            "The truth is that every OEM and service (e.g. Netflix, AMD, Broadcom...) supports Windows, almost none support Linux.

            Broadcom : http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

            Intel : http://www.intel.com/support/wireless/sb/cs-006408.htm

            AMD : http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx

            NVIDIA : http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html

            Even your beloved Microsoft is contributing to the kernel.

            1 0
            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

              "AMD : http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx"

              Ha ha ha ha! Nice try freetard. Go and tell this user about how great AMD's support is.

              http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/1762795

              0 4
              1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
                Reply Icon
                Devil

                Muah...

                MUAH.

                AC trollposts about Linux, injects hostility, fakes aggravated fanboism for Windows and hopes for a shitstorm?

                Here?

                Where using "professionalism" and "Microsoft" in the same phrase evokes tired guffaws?

                Go back to /b/, anon.

                2 0
          2. Chemist
            Reply Icon

            Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

            "you look at any tutorial (assuming you network card actually works) you'll see the CLI"

            Are you sure ? That's a rhetorical question actually as I know that you are not.

            Try http://linux.about.com/od/linux101/a/desktop14.htm

            0 0
        2. vagabondo
          Reply Icon

          Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

          @Anonymous Coward Saturday 16th March 2013 22:20 GMT

          Why did you do that? It was good to see the troll being totally ignored. I made it about 11hours from the first troll without any response, comment or vote.

          0 0
          1. vagabondo
            Reply Icon

            Re: @Anonymous Coward Saturday 16th March 2013 22:20 GMT

            Or maybe you are the troll, trying to prompt a response to yourself?

            1 0
          2. Chemist
            Reply Icon

            Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

            "It was good to see the troll being totally ignored"

            It was but as you see I answered almost certainly the same one below. The reason is simple, experienced users of Linux know he's a troll, interested onlookers might actually believe some of the garbage spouted.

            1 0
            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

              "The reason is simple, experienced users of Linux know he's a troll, interested onlookers might actually believe some of the garbage spouted."

              Apart from the fact it's the truth. Linux is a world of pain, suffering, poor support and editing arcane config files in the vain hope that it might start working (want to share a folder? In Windows it's right-click, "Share", done. In Linux? Well, first you need to edit smbd.conf...far from simple...then restart smbd..init.d?...upstart?...systemd?...back to the poorly written docs...maybe nmbd too...and pray...then find that name resoltuion isn't working...so back to smbd...try a few more times...two hours later your share might be working...or maybe not).

              Linux might be OK for hobbyists, but not in the real world. In the real world people want to get things done, not masturbate over command line switches.

              0 6
              1. Chemist
                Reply Icon

                Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

                "want to share a folder?"

                As it happens although I don't normally need Samba being all Linux so use NFS , my wife needed access to the fileserver for her Nexus 7 and Android phone. As the filemanager we'd installed on the Androids needed Samba I set it up on the fileserver. It took a handful of clicks. on the YAST GUI to get it working.

                2 0
        3. TheVogon
          Reply Icon
          Mushroom

          Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

          Not me, I only just got around to this thread. Not quite correct too - Enterprise support is after all available for SUSE. It just costs more than to license Windows...

          0 1
          1. vagabondo
            Reply Icon

            Re: Upgraded. Hoping my NVidia card would still work..

            @TheVogon

            Enterprise support is after all available for SUSE. It just costs more than to license Windows.

            May cost more than the MS licences. Apples and oranges. Compare with the cost of MS support. Then compare the costs of openSUSE licences with MS licences.

            0 0
  15. Barry Rueger

    Eh? Wifi?

    Burned it to a DVD, stuffed it in and rebooted.

    This is the first distro in a very long time that didn't automagically find my wireless card and allow me to set up my network in a couple of seconds.

    I'm surprised. I spent ten minutes poking around looking for the right place to fix the settings, but never succeeded.

    Eject DVD and back into Mint.

    That said, the KDE environment looked very cool and useful, and I MIGHT try it as an alternative to my current Mint install.

    1 4
    1. Chemist
      Reply Icon

      Re: Eh? Wifi?

      You might have run foul of this problem :

      http://lizards.opensuse.org/2013/03/13/one-that-got-away-12-3-networking/

      1 0
    2. Paul 135
      Reply Icon

      Re: Eh? Wifi?

      I'd hazard a guess that you have a Broadcom WiFi chip set. See here:

      http://opensuse-guide.org/wlan.php

      0 0
      1. Paul 135
        Reply Icon

        Re: Eh? Wifi?

        Sorry, wrong link. Meant this one for WiFi issues:

        http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Wireless_network_card

        0 0
    3. Barry Rueger
      Reply Icon

      Re: Eh? Wifi?

      FWIW, tried running it from USB instead of a DVD and everything is just fine. Odd bug that.

      I'm liking the KDE a LOT, and am seriously thinking of changing over from Mint.

      2 0
  16. the J to the C
    FAIL

    Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

    Really guys, its over, will someone tell the others, as a server, it has lots of merits but a desktop OS it is an. utter failure. I have been around the block a few times with Linux had a love hate relationship from the start but the main requirement of a OS has never been met by Linux in all it's variants, that is to make things work and then get out of the way. I dont care about the OS just want I want to do with it, how many of us think I know I want to rebuild my OS to allow it to run this app or used that hardware. its been fun to play with but today I dont have a linux build working and dont see a place for it as a desktop OS. Mac OS or Windows pick one and do something rather that fix the OS

    0 9
    1. Barry Rueger
      Reply Icon

      Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

      I call BS. Three years on Ubuntu/Mint with negligible problems. I was, and arguably still am a Windows ace, and have been up to my elbows in the guts of the thing. I also ran a Mac for several years. I would not go back.

      I've got Photoshop humming along nicely in WINE, and the one thing that won't run under Linux (QuickBooks) is happy in a Vista Virtual machine. Otherwise I use 90% what came preinstalled, plus Chrome and a couple of other things that amount to personal preference.

      Stuff Just Works. Every time. With significantly less virus alarms, update demands, reboots and pre-installed dreckware that seems to be part of the Windows world.

      Unless you have some very specific demands that specifically require a Windows or Mac software package, there's no reason why 98% of the world can't get by very, very well with Linux on on the desktop.

      4 1
      1. Chemist
        Reply Icon

        Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

        "Stuff Just Works."

        Agree entirely. I've used SUSE & OpenSUSE for years at home, certainly since SUSE 5.0, and I've used RH at work again for years.

        Installation on a wide variety of hardware has generally been trouble free even years ago and these days I'd no more expect to have a problem than I would expect to compile the kernel or use the CLI for installation. (I notice one of the usual troublemakers is spreading that FUD at the moment and in doing so is displaying the depths of his ignorance)

        OpenSUSE is my only desktop these days and I also use it on my file/odds&sods/proxy server. 3 machines of 6 have wireless networking which never gives a problem ( and I travel a lot with a laptop or netbook and connect to all manner of access points ). I have a NVidia accelerated graphics card on one machine that I do 1080p/50 video editing on, scanner/printer and laser printer, webcam, RAW photo processing.

        3 0
        1. TheVogon
          Reply Icon
          Mushroom

          Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

          "Stuff Just Works." - So Linux is finally getting more like Windows in terms of driver support, app availability, fixing its security problems (to a degree), games (well a few), usability (via the GUI anyway), etc.

          However there is no compelling reason for the average Joe Public to switch - and for that reason it doesn't ever look likely to succeed in taking a significant market share.

          0 3
          1. Chemist
            Reply Icon

            Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

            "However there is no compelling reason for the average Joe Public to switch "

            There is no likelihood 'Joe Public' as you call them will switch anymore than if all PCs came with Linux installed and people had to choose to switch to Windows.

            1% market share, whatever that means, is a great percentage when people have to CHOOSE to change.

            Given how disparaging you are about Linux I'm amazed you feel the need to bang on about it as though it threatens you in some way.

            2 0
            1. TheVogon
              Reply Icon
              Mushroom

              Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

              But manufacturers have previously sold PCs with Linux - and they got very high return rates and high support costs - so they don't bother any more. (and people did format many of the rest and put Windows on them.)

              0 2
      2. the J to the C
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

        "I've got Photoshop humming along nicely in WINE", you really have no place to go after that, I stand by what I said, its a utter failure. its not a pissing contest, I have worked with windows since 3.0 and have been a mac user for some time, each OS just works, i dont need to worry about compatibility or work arounds to get things to run, they just work, like I said, the OS is the least important part of a PC

        0 3
        1. Chemist
          Reply Icon

          Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

          @the J to the C; The Vogon

          I think you'd be better rushing over to some of the other forums where MS is under direct attack !

          0 0
    2. Paul 135
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

      I installed this latest OpenSUSE on an old Toshiba laptop from 2006. Everything worked out of the box, and works BETTER and FASTER than it did on Windows XP. Even the fan noise is now unnoticable! Small things like track pad gestures and volume controls etc. work that did not work in Windows at all, out-of-the-box without me installing a single driver!

      KDE is also a MUCH more powerful and logical desktop environment than any version of Windows, especially now that Microsoft has borked Windows 8. Microsoft, as much as I have been a fan over the last 20 years, the game is up.

      2 1
    3. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Trollface

      Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

      "Moving on": Choose the Jobs Cult Camp or the Windows Gulag.

      No thanks, I will pass. I don't particularly like Kool Aid or barbed wire.

      3 1
    4. Morten Bjoernsvik
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Down

      Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

      The only program I've missed from windows was Visio. Now with libreoffice4 we now have a much better draw package. And with Steam now accelerating on linux. I would say the future has never looked brighter for the linux desktop.

      1 0
    5. HippyFreetard
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

      It's not a complete failure, figurewise. Compare desktop market share percentages to time of company or project existing. Apple started shortly before MS in the late 70's, Linux has been going since the early 90's. Even with no marketing per se, Linux has gained between 1 and 5%, and that's just the ones we know about. Compared with Apple's 10-15% in longer time than MS, which is frankly pathetic in comparison, considering their superbowl ads and trendiness...

      Of course, we all know MS got their huge market share from being the best, and not because of monopolistic antitrust fuelled FUD and E&E tactics. That would be tin-foil-hat crazy talk!

      For most people, the main reason they use Windows is game and work compatibility, which are all being addressed (slowly), and there's always more companies and organisations switching all the time.

      0 0
      1. TheVogon
        Reply Icon
        Mushroom

        Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

        "Between 1 and 5%". No that's OS-X. As far as I know, no generally accepted market share figure for Linux has ever reached 2%. The current figures on Wikipedia say 1.21%.

        0 1
        1. HippyFreetard
          Reply Icon
          Alert

          Re: Linux as a desktop is a failure, its time to move on

          Yeah, they were really estimates based on my own surfing around. w3schools has 5% Linux visitors, Valve/Steam's customers are now 2% Linux, and Statcounter has just short of 1%, so there is always guesswork. MS counts sales of PC's with Windows, and lots of Linux users don't register when they dual-boot or wipe, so any kind of crossover there won't be noticed.

          It's not enough of a failure to stop big organisations like the French parliament or the US Navy adopting, it's not enough of a failure for companies like MS to see it as their biggest threat, (later contributing kernel code!), and for software companies like Valve to see potential in it's customer base.

          I can't say it's been a resounding success, but the statement that Linux is a failure and it's time to move on is simply not based in the real world.

          1 0
  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    KDE submenus still don't work

    They vanish is the parent node changes, or the submenu does not take focus immediately Durbin pointer tracking.

    Epic fail.

    This renders window menus nearly unusable, yet you freetards seem to love KDE.

    Guess you are just used to amateur efforts.

    0 7
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: KDE submenus still don't work

      > KDE submenus still don't work

      [ ... ]

      > Epic fail.

      You must be Miguel de Icaza, going through the twelve stages of grief.

      2 0
    2. Chemist
      Reply Icon

      Re: KDE submenus still don't work

      "KDE submenus still don't work "

      Nonsense, absolute nonsense. Never seen anything like that and IF I had it would be fixed rapidly.

      1 1
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: KDE submenus still don't work

        Then you clearly do not use KDE. The bug has been in existence for at least 7 years and logged multiple times (e.g. 113571, 140114, 167488...) - no fix has been released. Or is 7+ years simply not enough time for linux to fix *basic UI issues*?

        Menus are simple, if they can't even get that right...

        0 4
        1. Chemist
          Reply Icon

          Re: KDE submenus still don't work

          "Then you clearly do not use KDE"

          I use KDE all day, every day. I'm writing this on it now. Menus are all fine

          1 0
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: KDE submenus still don't work

            Ah I see. "Works for me, thus the other poster must be a liar (despite their supplying evidence)".

            0 3
            1. Chemist
              Reply Icon

              Re: KDE submenus still don't work

              ""Works for me, thus the other poster must be a liar "

              It does work for me, further on reading the bug-reports I can't see what they are talking about.

              Click on a menu, menu drops down, slide down to a sub-menu item, sub-menu opens, slide across, ditto if there are any further sub-sub menus. No lag, no problems.

              Of course replying to a group of individual ACs isn't the easiest - or are they all one person, and why the need for AC - it's not a confidential topic.Or have you reason to think that you might not get a warm welcome.

              2 0
            2. Chemist
              Reply Icon

              Re: KDE submenus still don't work

              "Ah I see. "Works for me, thus the other poster must be a liar (despite their supplying evidence)""

              Not calling anyone a liar, I can only report what I find, no menu problems on 6 different machines with various OpenSUSEs/KDEs. After many years of using KDE I've never seen this problem

              How about other KDE users ?

              4 0
              1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
                Reply Icon
                Black Helicopters

                Re: KDE submenus still don't work

                Never had any problem and I also think AC-ing should mean the IP address is advertised with one of those kaleidoscopic images.

                How about it, El Reg?

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                1. Chika
                  Reply Icon
                  Happy

                  Re: KDE submenus still don't work

                  Have a number of different KDE environments at my disposal, from KDE 3.5.10 under openSUSE 11.4 right up to KDE 4.10 under openSUSE 12.3. Currently have a VNC session open to a server running oS11.4 and KDE 4.6 release 6.

                  Never noticed this problem on any of them.

                  3 0
                  1. Chemist
                    Reply Icon

                    Re: KDE submenus still don't work

                    "Never noticed this problem on any of them."

                    Thanks for reminding me about VNC - I've just opened a session to my dual-core Atom fileserver and even though this can be a little laggy depending on what else is going on the KDE menus are fine.

                    (For anyone complaining that I have a desktop on a fileserver the machine actually has many functions some of which are better with a GUI)

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  18. AfternoonTea

    I used to be a big Suse fan, drifted to Ubuntu, is it worth turning back?

    (average cheapskate user)

    0 0
    1. Paul 135
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      "Um Bongo" in the title refers to Ubuntu (sometimes need a translator for the El Reg slang!). "Bonkers" is as good a description of it as I've seen!

      0 0
    2. Bill the Sys Admin
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Depends what your using it for, I use 12.2 at work because its stable and provides YAST. It is literally the best thing since sliced bread. YAST is one of the main reasons I stay at Opensuse. Can pretty much configure everything on your machine, obviously there are things you need to hit the terminal for and when dealing with remote servers its a no brainier. But for your local machine its just fantastic.

      But for media playing games etc, I would suggest Ubuntu.

      1 0
  19. circusmole
    Thumb Up

    ARM as well!

    I have used openSUSE since release 8. Dabbled with Debian, Ubuntu and Mint but always found them not to my taste after a short while.

    As a bonus there is now a pretty good ARM release of 12.2. I run it on a Pandaboard ES as a gateway system with a firewall, Masquerading, DHCP Server, DNSmasq, SQUID3... and the Xfce desktop - it works a treat.

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  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    SuSE...

    ...is the only Linux distro I have ever bought. No, I don't use it anymore. I bought it when it came bundled with StarOffice. This was before it was opensourced and eventually become LibreOffice. I used SuSE on my "desktop" for years after. Today it's a Debian affair. RPMs had to go.

    0 0
  21. Chika
    Linux

    I won't bore you with the details. I've written a bit about this on my LJ, but the gist is that I believe 12.3 to be an improvement on 12.2 in most respects, though there are a few niggles that have been a contant annoyance since version 12 took over. Boots a lot quicker than some of the older versions, plays nice with UEFI, even looks reasonable, though some of the designs on KDE 4 are a bit offputting IMHO. It even took KDE 3 without the faffing about that 12.1 or 12.2 had (though it still has issues).

    I never expect oS to do the business with every release, but they came close this time. As for the niggles - I have ways of getting around all that!

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