In this article we will be covering all of the changes in and around the package management stack in the upcoming openSUSE 11.0. There have been a plethora of both visual and behind-the-scenes changes. We’ll also be talking to Duncan Mac-Vicar, YaST team lead, ZYpp and KDE developer, to find out a little more later.

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I’m glad to announce the beginning of the Sneak Peaks at openSUSE 11.0 series! Over the next few weeks we will be taking a look at all of the exciting changes and improvements in openSUSE 11.0, with each article being followed by an interview with a developer in the field.

Today we will be taking a look at the new installer that has been developed for openSUSE 11.0, offering significant improvements over our previous version, with an incredibly appealing look, easier to complete, and a lot faster. We will also be talking to Stephan Kulow, KDE core developer and openSUSE project manager.

Digg this story! http://digg.com/linux_unix/Sneak_Peeks_at_openSUSE_11_0_New_Installer_with_Kulow

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The openSUSE Project is proud to announce the openSUSE 11.0 Release Candidate 1 (RC1). The good news is that we’re closing in on the final release of 11.0, but it’s not time to relax just yet. We’re getting really close, so we need all hands on deck to help test this release candidate. Since beta 3 we’ve fixed 578 bugs and resolved 1,118 bugs! Read on to see how you can help get 11.0 into top shape.

See more screenshots

Information and Download

The first step is to download the release candidate. Please remember that RC1 is not a stable release. As a release candidate, openSUSE 11.0 RC 1 is almost ready for day to day use, but may still have some interesting bugs that make it unsuitable for running a production system. Be sure to have backups of any important data before using openSUSE 11.0 RC 1 on a system.

Media and Download

You can download openSUSE 11.0 RC 1 for x86, x86_64, and PPC at http://software.opensuse.org/developer. Deltas from Beta 3 are also provided. Note that you will need the latest deltarpm from Factory, or for openSUSE 10.3 you can use the home:coolo repository to grab it.

Most Annoying Bugs

This is a list of the most annoying bugs, that we’re aware of, that still exist in the release candidate.

General

• GRUB config broken for other partitions. Bug #395085
• NVIDIA driver doesn’t compile. Workaround: check here for a patch

GNOME

• GNOME asks for the root password on first login. Bug 390658
• GNOME has wrong icon theme by default. Bug 391865

See the Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs_11.0_dev page on the wiki for an up-to-date list.

Call for Testing

To help testing, take a look at opensuse.org/Testing, and the Feature Test List page. The Feature Test List page includes a definitive list of new features included in openSUSE 11.0.

We need to test these features in particular, so please look through the features on the page, pick one that has not yet had its test completed, and make sure it passes. If not, be sure to file a bug in Bugzilla and mark the test “failed.” See the full instructions on the Feature Test List page.

Comments, Feedback, and Helping

With RC1, openSUSE 11.0 is almost ready for release, but we can still use help with testing before the official release. This is a great chance to contribute to openSUSE, by filing bug reports, testing features, and giving feedback to the openSUSE developers.

Here’s a few ways to help:

• Report bugs: If you do find a bug, be sure to report it in Bugzilla using the procedure given on bugs.openSUSE.org.
• Provide feedback: We welcome feedback! Please join us on the opensuse-factory@opensuse.org (subscribe) mailing list. Or in the #opensuse-factory IRC channel.
• Let the world know! Be sure to spread the word about openSUSE 11.0! Blog about it, tell your Linux User Group, start planning a Launch Party — whatever you can do to let the world know about openSUSE 11.0!

Thanks to all the developers and contributors for all the hard work that’s gone into openSUSE 11.0 so far, we’ve come a long way and only have a little more work to do before we have a final release. Fire up openSUSE 11.0 RC 1 and have a lot of fun!

The openSUSE team is proud to announce the last Beta release of openSUSE 11.0! Over 700 bugs has been fixed since Beta 2. This means we’re on the home stretch for openSUSE 11.0 and ask you all to do final heavy testing with it and give feedback or even send us patches. And we’re not only asking for help we’d like to thank you all for the great contributions up to date! First bunch of screenshots here

Have a lot of fun!

Information and Download

Remember that this is a beta. It may not be safe to run for production systems, eg. in power plants ;-), and should be used by users interested in testing the next release of openSUSE for bugs.

Most Annoying Bugs

General

• NVIDIA driver doesn’t compile. Workaround: check here for a patch
• parallel driver grabs IRQ14 preventing legacy SFF ATA controller from working Bug #375836
• T41p shutting down due to “temperature critical” Bug #378327
• Branding not yet complete Bug #369270
• Package selector doesn’t show any patterns (Bug #390139)

GNOME

• YaST control center does not start under GNOME (Bug #389069)
• No window decoration, workaround run compiz-manager & or metacity –replace& Bug #387168)

KDE

• kdm looses keyboard when detecting an unknown previous session type Bug #389098)
• Kontact starts with sidebar splitter on right window border Bug #389141, work-around: move it to left to see components
• opensuseupdater-kde unable to start ‘yast2 piwo’ Bug #389765

See the Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs_11.0_dev page on the wiki for an up-to-date list.

Call for Testing

If you want to help testing our standard test-cases, just take a look at openSUSE.org/Testing, and in particular the Testing:Features_11.0 sub-page which includes a definitive list of the features added into openSUSE 11.0. You can also coordinate with others and subscribe to the opensuse-testing@opensuse.org (subscribe) mailing list to help with our organized testing.

Media and Download

openSUSE 11.0 Beta 3 for i386, x86-64 and PPC comes as different media sets, all of which can be downloaded from http://software.opensuse.org/developer. Deltas from Beta 2 are also provided. Note that you will need the latest deltarpm from Factory, or for openSUSE 10.3 you can use the home:coolo repository to grab it.

Comments, Feedback and Helping

openSUSE 11.0 Beta 3 is a great time to start and continue testing-out openSUSE 11.0 before it is officially released. You can directly help and contribute to the openSUSE distribution by filing bug reports and giving feedback to the developers.

• Reporting bugs: Please report all bugs you find on in our Bugzilla as explained on bugs.openSUSE.org.
• Discussion and feedback is very welcome as well; the most appropriate place is the opensuse-factory@opensuse.org (subscribe) mailing list. Or in the #opensuse-factory IRC channel.

For other queries and ways to communicate with the openSUSE community take a look at the Communicate wiki page.

The next release is openSUSE 11.0 RC1 on May 29

In order to optimize the YaST partitioner module for openSUSE users the user experience team decided to conduct a small survey to figure out how you deal with hard disk configuration. The survey contains some basic questions and its results will directly influence the redesign for the partitioner module.

You can access the survey here.

The survey will be online until 28th May 2008 and the results will be published on openSUSE.org as soon as possible.

Answering the questions will take less than five minutes.

Thank you for your participation and have a lot of fun!

The openSUSE team is proud to announce the second Beta release of openSUSE 11.0! New changes include countless bug fixes, as well as the import of the new openSUSE 11.0 artwork for login, splash screens and more. The live installation should work, but there are several known quirks, so be sure to check the most annoying bugs list before proceeding.

See Screenshots/openSUSE_11.0_Beta2 for more screenshots.

Information and Download

Remember that this is a beta. It may not be safe to run for production systems, and should be used by users interested in testing the next release of openSUSE for bugs.

Most Annoying Bugs

Live CD:

• Automatic Configuration after boot into installed system behaves weird (Bug #385563, Bug #385558)
• Installation leaves traces of Live system (Bug #385829)

General:

• GNOME Main Menu is slow to respond (Bug #375701) Workaround: Click on volume control in the panel, Configure local sound server then check “Enable network access to local sound devices”
• GNOME is extremly slow (Bug #383336) (logging in takes >1 minute etc) Workaround: Add your hostname to /etc/hosts (See bug)

See the Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs_11.0_dev page on the wiki for an up-to-date list.

Call for Testing

If you want to help testing our standard test-cases, just take a look at openSUSE.org/Testing, and in particular the Testing:Features_11.0 sub-page which includes a definitive list of the features added into openSUSE 11.0. You can also coordinate with others and subscribe to the opensuse-testing@opensuse.org (subscribe) mailing list to help with our organized testing.

Media and Download

openSUSE 11.0 Beta 2 for i386, x86-64 and PPC comes as different media sets, all of which can be downloaded from http://software.opensuse.org/developer. Deltas from Beta 1 are also provided. Note that you will need the latest deltarpm from Factory, or for openSUSE 10.3 you can use the home:coolo repository to grab it.

Comments, Feedback and Helping

openSUSE 11.0 Beta 2 is a great time to start testing-out openSUSE 11.0 before it is officially released. You can directly help and contribute to the openSUSE distribution by filing bug reports and giving feedback to the developers.

• Reporting bugs: Please report all bugs you find on in our Bugzilla as explained on bugs.openSUSE.org.
• Discussion and feedback is very welcome as well; the most appropriate place is the opensuse-factory@opensuse.org (subscribe) mailing list. Or in the #opensuse-factory IRC channel.

For other queries and ways to communicate with the openSUSE community take a look at the Communicate wiki page.

The next planned release is openSUSE 11.0 Beta 3 on May 13.

Michal Vyskocil has requested a new mailing list around Java topics. You can subscribe to it or browse the newly created archive. This nicely fits our other Java changes, which can be discussed on the mailing list:

• Debian and Ubuntu based Java buildings: It was not possible so far to build Java based packages for Debian or Ubuntu, because Java lives there in non-free or Multiverse repositories. We have imported these as Debian:Etch:NonFree or Ubuntu:*:Multiverse projects to offer java builds in future. We would like to thank Carsten Höger from Open-Xchange for his help and the needed java preinit package. A nice example for using Java on deb based distributions is the server:OX:snapshot project.
• openSUSE:Factory is using open source Java from openJDK6 now. We switched to openJDK6 as default Java to be able to deliver a complete open source Factory distribution including Java. This is currently not a final decision, just a test approach to evaluate the situation. This affects also everybody who builds a Java package for Factory using the generic “BuildRequires: java-devel”, openJDK6 will be used in this case as a Java environment. A drawback is the increased bootstrap time for Java in Factory atm, increasing the time for a complete Factory rebuild to several days. We are working hard to avoid this again in future.

The openSUSE team is proud to announce the first Beta release of openSUSE 11.0! There are many exciting enhancements and features in the new release. Among these is the incredibly fast package management (libzypp), KDE 3.5.9 and 4.0.3, GNOME 2.22.1, a beautiful new installer, live CDs and much more.

What’s New

The openSUSE 11.0 beta 1 includes quite a few changes and new features that users will find interesting, including:

KDE 4 and KDE 3.5: The openSUSE 11.0 beta 1 includes KDE 4.0.3, which includes a number of new features, fixes, and optimizations. See the KDE4 page for more info on the KDE4 branch. To help test, see the wiki for info on reporting bugs in KDE. Not quite ready to move to KDE4? No worries, the beta includes an installation option for KDE 3.5 in addition to KDE4.

GNOME 2.22: Beta 1 includes GNOME 2.22.1 with plenty of new features and packages. Interested in helping with testing for GNOME in openSUSE 11.0? See the wiki for all the info you need.

YaST ported to Qt4: openSUSE’s administration and installation tool, YaST, has been ported to Qt4, providing beautiful styling for the installer, and an improved look for areas such as package management.

Screenshots!

Here’s a quick look at openSUSE 11.0 beta 1:

For some more screenshots head over to Screenshots/openSUSE_11.0_Beta1 on the wiki.

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After four regular weeks and one hack week after Alpha 2, we are very happy to announce openSUSE 11.0 Alpha 3.

  

See more screenshots on the Screenshots/openSUSE_11.0_Alpha3 wiki page

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Zonker wrote the following:

I’m happy to announce that the openSUSE Project has been accepted to Google’s Summer of Code 2008! Now the real fun begins!

We’re now in the “interim period” for students to discuss application ideas with mentoring organizations. (That’d be us.) Students will then have from March 24th through March 31st to apply to Google. See our ideas page, and Google’s SoC 2008 FAQ for more info and timeline.

Kudos to Google for acting quickly on this — applications for organizations were due last Wednesday, and I was notified this afternoon that we had been accepted. That’s pretty speedy, given the number of applications I’m sure they had to read through.

Discussion about openSUSE’s participation in Google’s SoC 2008 is most appropriate on the opensuse-project mailing list.