openSUSE 12.3 introduced the 32bit ARMv7 architecture as new, fully supported architecture and brought experimental 64bit ARM (AArch64) images. Since the release, support for new hardware was added and more build power brought to the Open Build Service. And as far as we can tell, we now have the first large scale KVM deployment on ARM! We also introduce support for the Calxeda Highbank ARM server SoC, a major step forward for both ARM and openSUSE. Read on for details on where the openSUSE ARMy is going. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Software’ Category
openSUSE for new geekos
March 22nd, 2013 by Jos Poortvliet
It is almost weekend and you want to try another Linux distribution? We’ve got you covered!
The Linux ecosystem is a varied one with hundreds of distributions, each having their unique set of abilities and limitations. Some compile the source on your system, others let you choose between init systems, try to be as small as possible, experiment with security solutions and more. There is also variation in governance: some are strongly top-down organized, others decide in a meritocratic way or vote. Some have strong corporate sponsor pushing decisions – others don’t. Some care to collaborate, others don’t value the wider ecosystem much and go their own way.
The variety in solutions shows people want different things and the different distributions provide that. But people change, so do their needs. And so, for those looking for Greener pastures, we wrote this articles with an overview of ‘the openSUSE way’ and the major differences between our tools and those from other major distributions. (more…)
Sneak Preview III: There and Back Again: a Distro’s Tale
March 11th, 2013 by Jos Poortvliet
What do Qt 5, Linux 3.8 and LibreOffice 4 have in common? They were not released in time to be included in our leading edge, but stable openSUSE 12.3 in time. But fear not: the power of the Open Build Service comes to the rescue! The herd of almost 35000 Geekos working there creates a wide variety of packages for openSUSE 12.3 and we’ll highlight a few of those in this article. (more…)
Sneak preview II: openSUSE 12.3 for Servers
March 8th, 2013 by Jos Poortvliet
postgres in openSUSE 12.3
The new openSUSE is just around the corner so let’s take a closer look at some of the new features that you can look forward to. This time, we will concentrate on the features for servers: databases, virtualization and OpenStack packages. (more…)
Sneak Preview I: openSUSE 12.3 for Desktop Users
March 6th, 2013 by Jos Poortvliet
In less than two weeks, openSUSE 12.3 will be on your doorstep. Or rather, on the mirrors, ready for use. If you are curious to know what is coming, this first sneak preview is for you! We’ll talk about what’s new on the desktop: GNOME, KDE, XFCE and Enlightenment as well as the applications. Enjoy! (more…)
openSUSE 12.2: Brought to you by “an extremely talented group of people”
January 23rd, 2013 by Jos Poortvliet
In September, the openSUSE community released openSUSE 12.2 all around the world. So what have the responses been since that Wednesday a little over three months ago, and what can we learn for openSUSE 12.3, which is just three months away?
Community feedback
Everyone was very enthusiastic about the release. On the social networks we had hundreds of +1′s, likes and shares for the release announcement from the over 12000 Google+ users with openSUSE in their circle. With almost as many followers on Twitter and about 7K on Facebook, these networks were also full of discussions about the release and the sharing of the good news. The general vibe was a good one and there was lots of excitement. (more…)
Where is my 12.2, my Kingdom for a 12.2!
June 14th, 2012 by Jos Poortvliet
Many people have noticed that the milestones and the Beta for this openSUSE release have been delayed or even canceled like Milestone 4. Now the RC is planned to go out Thursday – but that seems unlikely to happen as Factory, our development project, is still far too unstable. Coolo has send a mail to the openSUSE Factory mailing list noting that we need to re-think how we’re working.
We need new ideas
The mail by Coolo serves as a wakeup-call for openSUSE. Right now, we work via the devel projects which collaboratively send in better packages to Factory. But even then, sometimes things break in major ways and this breakage has gotten more frequent over time due to the growth of our community. One solution for this is to make heavier usage of ‘staging projects’ where packages get deeper testing and more integration can be done before moving to Factory. Another direction we could take is building more on our strengths like OBS and Tumbleweed. Slowing our release cycle to produce more stable releases say once a year, while increasing the emphasis on and efforts put in Tumbleweed and our OBS repo’s with newer software could give both ‘bleeding edge’ fans and those depending on a stable openSUSE more of what they want. Or, we go and loosen our release schedule, bringing out openSUSE ‘when it is ready’.
All options have pro’s and con’s. We want to avoid loosing ourselves: introducing rules and procedures to solve problems isn’t our way. So, we need fresh ideas and look in other directions. And now is the time to discuss these things: we’re bumping into the limits of how we work so the sense of urgency is there! (more…)
GoGo on openSUSE
April 16th, 2012 by Jos Poortvliet
openSUSE 12.1 was one of the first major Linux distributions to include the new programming language Go. Recently, go 1.0 was released and shortly before milestone 3 openSUSE Factory received packages for this new Go. Graham Anderson notified the factory mailing list of this and included some tips for Go hackers on getting started with Go. Read on for some of his tips and links to more. (more…)
Using BTRFS on openSUSE 12.1
January 23rd, 2012 by Manu GuptaThis article is contributed by Kamila Součkova
Introduction
As the btrfs wiki says: “Btrfs is a new copy on write filesystem for Linux aimed at implementing advanced features while focusing on fault tolerance, repair and easy administration.” Although under heavy development, it has become stable enough for personal use, and there are plenty of reasons to try it. What distinguishes it from earlier filesystems is that it has been designed with scalability and robustness in mind: it can handle huge files (up to 16EiB — a lot!), it can pack lots of files and directories efficiently, has built-in error detection methods (checksums of data and metadata), support for transparent compression, integrated multiple devices support (RAID-0, RAID-1 and RAID-10 so far) and more — see here for a more complete list.
In this how-to I will focus on one particularly neat feature: snapshots. Btrfs allows you to make read-only or writable snapshots of the state of your filesystem without wasting space with redundant data. Together with YaST’s Snapper module, this makes tracking FS changes and undoing undesired modifications a breeze.
systemd – boot faster and cleaner with openSUSE 12.1
December 22nd, 2011 by Manu GuptaopenSUSE 12.1 features systemd as a replacement for the System V init daemon. systemd provides a new and improved way of booting up your system and managing services. It comes with many new features like socket and dbus-activation, use of cgroups (control groups) and aggressive parallelization capabilities which leads to a faster boot-up of the system. Systemd also introduces a number of new features and tools for sysadmins. This article will explain what systemd does, how it does it and how to take advantage of the new possibilities it offers.
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