openSUSE is one of the few Linux distributions which seems to evolve by leaps and bounds with every new release. Although numbered as an incremental upgrade from version 11.0, openSUSE 11.1 contains enough improvements and new features to be well worth an install, even by users already running the previous release.

History

Originally called Suse, the now venerable Linux distribution took on the “Open” moniker following its acquisition by Novell and subsequent split into SLED (Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop, aimed at the business market and offering improved integration with Microsoft Exchange systems as well as Novell Netware ones), SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) and openSUSE, targeted towards home users and developers.

About

Widely available on the US market since around 2000, Suse has rapidly been increasing its share of the Linux market ever since and along with Ubuntu, Mandriva and Fedora is one of the most popular distributions.
Suse is well known as one of the most user friendly Linux distros while still offering plenty of features to appeal to power users.

Yast

openSUSE’s system administration suite YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) provides all of the standard configuration options and system administration options all in one place (something users of some other popular distributions bemoan, with Debian-based distributions generally being the biggest offenders in this department).
There are also advanced options including detailed user and group permissions setting, optimization tweaks for hardware and more.

User Interface

Of course, the user interface is what new users will notice first and openSUSE 11.1 doesn’t disappoint here – offering both KDE 4.1 and Gnome 2.24, both in customized SuSE-branded versions, as well as KDE 3.5 and few other popular window managers such including xfce, enlightenment and others.
For users of the popular KDE window manager/desktop environment, the move to KDE 4.1 (upgradeable to 4.2 through YaST’s software administration module) is one of the biggest changes in this new openSUSE release.

The new KDE 4.1 desktop included in openSUSE 11.1 is a vast improvement over the KDE 4.0 included in 11.0, which many users found to be difficult to use and/or unstable on many systems, as attractive of an interface as it was.

Thankfully for users, openSUSE 11.1 has developed an implementation of KDE 4 which is both visually appealing, stable and usable – so much so, in fact that Suse has announced that KDE 3.5 will be the last release of the KDE 3 branch to be officially supported by their distribution.
Future releases will likely be bundled with KDE 4 only, rather than offering users a choice of KDE 3 or KDE 4.

What's new

So what’s new about the version of KDE 4 included in openSUSE 11?
Quite a lot, as it happens. KDE 4.1.3 uses the KWin compositing system by default (provided that the user’s hardware supports this) or the Compiz system to provide users with graphical effects.
Users whose systems support KWin compositing will be treated to 3D desktop rendering including the much talked about “Cube” and “Screen Flow” effects.
Of course, anyone who doesn’t want or need the features offered by KWin 4’s compositing can use Compiz (a Compiz configuration utility is included in the openSUSE 11.1 of KDE 4 as a KDE module).

The advantages of the two compositing systems openSUSE 11.1 offers for KDE 4 are that users have a lot of freedom to configure the desktop’s look and feel to their liking; allowing them to essentially create their own desktop (there are also a wide variety of themes available for KDE which users can simply download and use).

Of course, even those who aren’t KDE fans will find plenty to like in this latest openSUSE release; the customized version of Gnome 2.24 included here offers the user another attractive and easy to use desktop environment – and there’s always xfce and other window managers who prefer none of the above.

Security

openSUSE has made one large change in user permissions which has been enabled by default in version 11.1. Like Ubuntu and other popular Linux distributions, they have made sudo the authentication system for granting users root privileges for running program. In former versions, users would have to open a terminal window and log in as root or even restart the window manager to log in as the root user to run programs with administrator privileges.
With sudo, users can preface commands in the terminal with sudo (and are then asked for their password) or when calling up the “Run” window with Alt+F2 (and depending on the program or command being run, a window will popup asking the user for their password before proceeding).

Conclusion

With many updated features and entirely new ones, openSUSE 11.1 includes enough new and exciting things that it feels like an entirely new version number rather than an incremental upgrade. Long time Linux users and people coming from Windows systems alike will find OpenSuse 11.1 to be a welcoming new home which while not perfect, offers one of the most usable and polished Linux systems for the home or business desktop.

openSUSE Website | Download

*Images courtesy of opensuse.org

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