The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 3. Images are ready for download and testing. This release includes the 2.6.30 Linux kernel, KDE 4.3 beta 2, GNOME 2.27.2, OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 Alpha, and more!

This is a Milestone Release, one of several leading up to the 11.2 release in November. It may not be suitable for production systems, but should be stable enough for testing.

Screenshots of the milestone releases and factory development can be found (or added) on the wiki.

Changes Since openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 2

A lot has changed since the M2 release, and many packages have been updated for 11.2 M3. Some of the major changes in this release include:

• Linux kernel 2.6.30
• GNOME 2.27.2
• KDE 4.3 beta 2
• PulseAudio 0.9.15
• Konversation 1.2 Alpha 3
• VirtualBox 2.2.4
• Wine 1.1.23
• OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 Alpha

See the openSUSE Wiki for additional changes in 11.2 Milestone 3. You can see the latest packages in Factory on DistroWatch, which tracks 203 major packages in openSUSE.

Getting Milestone 3

The latest development versions are available from http://software.opensuse.org/developer/. Choose from x86 or x86-64 install DVDs or the KDE and GNOME Live CDs.

Testing

Help us make openSUSE 11.2 the best release yet! Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a milestone release, and is not suitable for use on production systems.

Though many openSUSE users can and do use the Factory distribution and/or testing releases for day-to-day work we want to stress that it’s entirely possible that you will encounter serious bugs. See openSUSE.org/Testing for more information on Testing. To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the #openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.

openSUSE development is now even more open than before. Factory development is changing, and we’re making it easier for contributors to take responsibility for packages and to contribute directly to openSUSE. This means contributors will be able to be directly responsible for packages, without having to go through a Novell employee to make changes.

Factory development is being split into devel projects organized by topic areas, such as KDE, GNOME, Education, Java, and so on. Devel projects are responsible for sets of packages and will be able to organize themselves rather than following a top-down model of management.

The idea is to allow teams to be self-organizing and for all contributors to have equal footing in terms of being able to contribute to openSUSE Factory.

To get started, the current Novell and openSUSE package maintainers will be working with each other to define responsibility within the devel projects and how the team will work together. As time goes on, they will integrate new maintainers into the teams and commit privileges will be based on merit and not whether a person is employed by Novell.

How to Get Started

If you’re new to working with Factory and the openSUSE Build Service, you can start with the Factory Packaging page on the openSUSE Wiki. This explains the Factory workflow, how to check out packages and submit changes, how to create new devel projects, and so on.

Have questions or need help getting started? There are plenty of openSUSE Factory contributors who’d be happy to answer questions and help you get started. To learn more, join the opensuse-factory mailing list, or get real-time help in the #opensuse-factory IRC channel on Freenode.

The policy changes that have been made with Factory are another step in making openSUSE a more independent project, and allowing all contributors to take equal responsibility. As Factory development and devel teams evolve, we hope to see more contributors taking a lead role in leading openSUSE development and shaping the openSUSE distro. Factory is open!

The openSUSE Project is happy to announce the second milestone release for openSUSE 11.2 is ready for download. This release includes Firefox 3.5 beta 4, KDE 4.3 beta 1, GNOME 2.26, and hundreds of other updates from Milestone 1.

This is a Milestone Release, which means that it may not be suitable for production systems. This is one in a series of releases leading to the official openSUSE 11.2 release, scheduled for November 2009.

Screenshots of the 11.2 Milestone 2 release are available on the wiki.

Changes Since openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 1

A lot has changed since the 11.1 M1 release, with many packages being updated for 11.2. Some of the major changes in this release include:

• The distribution is built with GCC 4.4
• M2 uses the 2.6.30rc6 kernel
• Live CDs include The GIMP
• Default filesystem is Ext4
• Firefox 3.5 beta 4
• GNOME 2.26 packages and some preview packages from GNOME 2.27.1
• KDE 4.3 beta 1
• OpenOffice.org 3.1
• VirtualBox 2.2.2

See the openSUSE Wiki for additional changes in 11.2 Milestone 2. You can see the latest packages in Factory on DistroWatch, which tracks 203 major packages.

Getting Milestone 2

The latest development versions are available from http://software.opensuse.org/developer/. Choose from x86 or x86-64 install DVDs or the KDE and GNOME Live CDs.

Testing

Help us make openSUSE 11.2 the best release yet! Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a milestone release, and is not suitable for use on production systems.

Though many openSUSE users can and do use the Factory distribution and/or testing releases for day-to-day work we want to stress that it’s entirely possible that you will encounter serious bugs. See openSUSE.org/Testing for more information on Testing. To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the #openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.

Lizard lovers, get ready to start your engines! The first milestone release for openSUSE 11.2 is now ready for your testing pleasure.

Please note: This is a milestone release. It’s for openSUSE contributors who want to use the release for testing and development (or want a sneak preview of the 11.2 release), but it is not for production use.

What’s New in 11.2 Milestone 1

The 11.2 milestone 1 includes a number of new packages and improvements to the base system that are in development:

• Linux kernel 2.6.29
• KDE 4.2.2
• GNOME 2.26
• Mono 2.4
• OpenOffice.org 3.1 beta 4
• Xfce 4.6
• Alsa 2.6.29
• Samba 3.2.8

In addition, the live CDs now use LZMA compression and have German, French, Italian, Polish, and Russian translations. YaST’s Qt package manager now has a configurable view layout, and Zypp’s mirror handling should be more robust in this release. Ext4 is supported in this release, but not yet enabled for installation.

Additional Features Completed for 11.2 milestone 1

• 302485: sync GPT and MBR on MacBook (mactel)
• 302923: handle redirection to mirrors robustly
• 304429: package cache handling in YaST
• 305561: Install Debuginfo Package by build-id
• 305561: access table contents in YaST in more ways than just by push buttons
• 305803: improve command_not_found_helper speed
• 306230: Auto-Reset the screen settings in gnome-display-properties

You can track all features for 11.2 in openFate.

See more on Factory progress on the Factory Page on the openSUSE wiki. Screenshots are available (and can be uploaded to) Screenshots/11.2_Alpha_0.

Getting Milestone 1

The latest development versions are available from http://software.opensuse.org/developer/. You can choose x86 or x86-64 DVDs or KDE and GNOME Live CDs.

Testing

We all want openSUSE 11.2 to be the best release yet, and we need your help to get there. Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a milestone release, and is not suitable for use on production systems.

Though many openSUSE users can and do use the Factory distribution and/or testing releases for day-to-day work we want to stress that it’s entirely possible that you will encounter serious bugs. See openSUSE.org/Testing for more information on Testing. To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the #openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.

The roadmap for 11.2 is now set, and openSUSE is getting a fixed release cycle!  Codenamed  “Fichte,” openSUSE 11.2 is planned for release in November, and releases thereafter will happen every eight months.

While all features for 11.2 are not yet settled, the release should include KDE 4.3, GNOME 2.28, Linux kernel 2.6.30 (or higher),  a Web-based YaST interface, netbook support (with free drivers), Ext4, and more.

The announcement was sent out today by Stephan Kulow on the openSUSE-Project mailing list:

(more…)

The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of the openSUSE Trademark Guidelines (PDF). With the guidelines, the openSUSE Project is looking to clarify the use of the openSUSE marks and make it easier to redistribute openSUSE-based projects.

Since it’s easier than ever to create customized versions of openSUSE, we’ve seen a lot of interest in the branding of derivative distros. When is it OK to call a distro “openSUSE,” or “powered by openSUSE,” and when does the branding need to be removed entirely? The guidelines are an attempt to answer as many of those questions as possible in one concise document.

What Do the Guidelines Cover?

The openSUSE Trademark Guidelines cover using the openSUSE marks for derivative distributions, merchandise, domain names, advocacy groups, events, publications, advertising materials, and much more.

If you’re doing anything that involves redistributing openSUSE or materials with the openSUSE marks, you should look over the trademark guidelines to ensure that your use is permitted.

Seeking Special Permission

If you want to use the official openSUSE marks, but fall outside the permitted uses it is still possible to get permission. If you’d like to seek special permisison, send an email to permission@novell.com with your contact information and an explanation of the situation.

Have Questions?

For discussion of the guidelines and policies around the openSUSE marks, feel free to ask on the openSUSE-project mailing list. (opensuse-project@opensuse.org, subscribe using opensuse-project+subscribe@opensuse.org.)

Discussion about openSUSE branding in general can be directed to the openSUSE marketing mailing list (opensuse-marketing@opensuse.org, subscribe using opensuse-marketing+subscribe@opensuse.org.)

The openSUSE Factory distribution is our permanent development distribution. Currently used to develop openSUSE 11.2. We want to make the factory distribution better usable for everybody to get a better testing for next release.
One of the complaints we received in the last years is that the huge amount of newly built packages makes it hard for people to keep their system up to date, simply due to the time needed for downloading and installing the packages.

We have switched now to a new mechanism, which will reduce the number of packages which get published significantly.
To explain the new mechanism, we should look at the old concepts to build a distribution:

(more…)

The KDE Project released KDE 4.2 on Tuesday, and of course openSUSE packages were available in time for the release. If you missed the pointer from the KDE announcement info page, you can get your KDE 4.2 fix in a number of ways.

Want to install KDE 4.2 on an existing system? Grab the packages via one-click install for openSUSE 11.1, openSUSE 11.0, or openSUSE 10.3.

You can also run the 4.2 packages in a Live CD, or install a fresh openSUSE 11.1-based system with KDE 4.2 packages from the Live CD found under http://home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/. You’ll find x86 and x86_64 ISOs there.

Thanks much to our KDE gurus for having this ready! If you want to run 4.2, no need to wait another minute — grab the packages and have a lot of fun!

Update: Please note that these packages are not supported. The KDE team has packaged these for openSUSE users who want to get their hands on KDE 4.2 quickly, but the packages are not supported.

[29.01.2009 16:51] <digitltom> features.opensuse.org updated including vote system  

Wow, that was fast. openfate already had a lot of features to make feature tracking easier and the new version got a lot of improvements!

Let me point out some major new features i like and which are quite visible:

• No login required anymore if you just want to look. Even most have a login, sometimes i really just want to look at it, for example someone posted a feature link … way faster now! And you can login on the fly: you browse, are not logged in, want to edit it, just login and it will take you back to the page.

• The save button is better visible … I guess i was not the only one who lost a feature or comment because it was to well hidden. Now it jumps to the save button after you edit your comment, no chance to miss it.

• One feature many people wanted is voting. Yes, it’s included and help a lot to see what the users want and where to put more energy in. On the dashboard you can see the top 5 features now. Don’t wonder if it’s not showing a change after you voted, it has a 5 minute delay, the features itself shows the right count instantly.
• Check also the “Toggle Statistics” link in the voting window. Happy voting!
• Features can be tagged now, and of course there is a nice tag cloud on the dashboard

You can look at the full changelog for other changes. Thanks to the openfate team for including the new features quite short after the initial release!

The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce that feature tracking and requests are now available to the larger openSUSE Community. The openSUSE feature tracking system, openFATE, is now live and accessible to anyone with an openSUSE account.

Hosted at features.opensuse.org, openFATE will help the openSUSE community monitor and participate in the development process. Features that are tracked in openFATE are any proposals that the project wants to see introduced in order to improve openSUSE. For example:

• Changes to the openSUSE theme.
• The default system editor.
• A new feature to allow automatic bug reporting.

Anyone can use openFATE to view and discuss features, so long as they have an account. This will allow the openSUSE community to see how the releases evolve and participate directly in feature discussions.

If you’re an openSUSE Member, you can even add features in openFATE. While we can’t accept every new feature, this enables members to propose features directly for consideration. (If you’re an openSUSE contributor and haven’t applied for membership, please do so soon!)

Want to learn more about openFATE? Please see openFATE on the openSUSE wiki.

We’ll also need help in screening features for future openSUSE releases. We’ll be creating a volunteer team to help evaluate feature requests and help direct the future of openSUSE! If you’d like to participate, please add your name to the openSUSE Fate wiki under Screening Team.

Thanks much to the following for their work on implementing openFATE and making it accessible to the entire openSUSE community: Thomas Schmidt, Klaas Freitag, Andre Duffeck, Michael Loeffler, Christopher Hofmann, Jürgen Weigert, and the entire tools team. A lot of hard work has gone into opening this system, and it will be vital for improving openSUSE and enhancing community participation.