openSUSE also remains one of the only distributions that have automatic Btrfs snapshots setup out of the box. I am very surprised other distributions have not done the same. Especially Fedora, since they use Btrfs already.
IIRC, it was related to Fedora Atomic. Out of the box, Fedora Atomic offers functionality that's very close to what you'd expect from Btrfs snapshots. It doesn't use Snapper, but instead relies on (rpm-)ostree; at least, that's my understanding of it. So, in order to make Fedora Atomic more palatable and attractive, this feature was not directly built into Fedora. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if 'politics' play a role in this; Snapper is kinda like openSUSE's project. While Fedora Atomic's implementation is Fedora's take. Unfortunately, it happens to be (by design) not available on traditional Fedora.
You find Zypper a better name than Pacman?
I would say zypper up is the better command, just because it's kinda funny. pacman is better overall, but it gets less fun when you start adding arguments like -Syu, if only because it's a "language" you have to learn and isn't self-documenting in any way.
Haha, zypper up is a nice one, didn't know that.
Pacman gets huge bonus points though for having a config option to turn to progress bar shown during package installation into a 'pacman' (letter c) chomping from left to right :)
(done by adding ILoveCandy under the Misc options in /etc/pacman.conf)
Zypper may be a better name than apt, but it doesn’t have super cow powers.
I think the issue with Suse is a lack of clear vision - SLE exists and it's very good to have a competitor to Red Hat in my opinion. OpenSuse is a bit of everything: there's Tumbleweed which's selling point is to be rolling release and fulfilled the role Sid has for Debian: be the basis for the stable distribution. However, the stable distribution which was rebranded to Leap is now based on SLE (and will be based on ALP with version 16 if everything works out). So Tumbleweed is just rolling along as a downstream of Factory, which is... another rolling distribution serving as the main development distribution.
Then there's also Micro OS, another rolling release distribution designed to host containers. Personally, I'd have found a minimal OS designed to be run in a VM - something similar to Alpine - more useful, but I'm not really a container guy. It's also supposed to switch to ALP if I'm not mistaken.
Oh yeah and there's also OpenEuler which is a free RHEL clone.
I wonder if all of this makes sense in some enterprise setups?
And then, last time I tried Tumbleweed (in fairness this was some years ago), after all this work with distributions tailored to specific cases, a build system with testing and so on, I run into a network configuration issue that couldn't be solved with YaST. I didn't know why they insist on keeping it, I guess at this point it's such cost fallacy. Anyhow, try searching for how to solve it with Suse, answers are usually use YaST. Turns out Suse uses their own solution for networking, which is wicked (that's not an adjective). This is started in 13.4.1.1 in https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/reference/html/book-reference/cha-network.html. I don't remember seeing the option in the terminal YaST. Zypper also wasn't very convincing, coming from pacman.
All in all, from my point of view, they created a broad ecosystem that fills a lot of niches and yet just annoys me when I actually try to use it. In my opinion, their core tools are unremarkable at best.
YaST. I didn’t know why they insist on keeping it, I guess at this point it’s such cost fallacy.
What do you mean? I love the idea of a comprehensive central system config tool. I haven't used OpenSuSE in ages but it always stood out to me as a huge plus.
It's a nice idea when it works. But when it doesn't cover your case, you need to edit configs manually and hope that YaST doesn't decide to override them later. At least that's what I remember.
Ah, I see, that's unfortunate. That's generally a real problem with tools that try to edit existing writable config files.
I really want to make a distro which is built on top of basically a GUI-first (at least for most general configuration) NixOS kinda thing, where you both have to go through the tool but it also doesn't limit you in what you can do. That's a huge endeavor though especially to get it right :^)
Tumbleweed does also feed into Leap. Leap uses SLE packages for most of the core libraries, but then user-facing applications see new versions integrated from what's been packaged in Tumbleweed. Particularly, they also automate lots of the package testing in Tumbleweed, so that can be reused for Leap. Well, and also for SLE, which will also grab stuff from Tumbleweed when they do plan to upgrade their packages.
As for minimal VM images, they do offer downloads for those.
On this page, you can click on "Download", then "Alternative Downloads".
These don't seem to be available for Leap currently. Not sure, if it's because Leap 15.6 has only been out for a few weeks. Could also be that I'm missing something here.
As for Wicked, they only use it for server systems as the default, and they do make it easy to switch to NetworkManager, if you prefer.
Yup I agree, openSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE Plasma desktop is just awesome. my favourite distro at this moment,
Got to admit, the zypper argument is compelling.
"zypper up"! is the best upgrade command.
You're forgetting that pacman can show a little pacman as the loading bar. Also I'm always happy to run updates so typing "yay" into my terminal just feels right.
My rebuttal is that I have never had arch not boot except me messing up the install 8 years ago when I was learning.
I installed a completely standard tubleweed install on a laptop, grub broke and tumbleweed wouldn't boot anymore during the first update that was recommended to me through a notification popup that brought me to an update GUI. This was just 2 years ago.
Arch you can boot by default with rEFInd. It is infinitely easier than grub, searches and finds boots by default, even if it is configured incorrectly, and has never broken once in 8 years while grub has broken many, many times. That is not an option with tumbleweed install.
There have 100% been package and dependency breakages on tumbleweed, just like arch and every single distro. It happens.
Documentation is meager at best for tumbleweed and related. Archwiki is unbeatable in that regard.
The AUR. Please, try to go install niche programs like EdrawMax, PulseView, etc... RPMs make it pretty easy after you find it. On arch it is "yay pulseview" .. "1" .. "y" .... Done.
They are all great distros with many pros and cons to each. Most people would be fine with any of them.
For example opensuse variants have btrfs with snapshot set up upon installation. That is pretty damn cool and useful!
That said, I am definitely going to try Kalpa because it is a fresh way of doing things.
To anyone still singing the "installation too hard" argument... Archinstall is so cool now.. The defaults are just so friggin sane and systemd-boot with UKI as the boot setup is really cool to just be able to choose in an installer. The partitioner is also so easy to use... Most pleasant experience with a Linux installer in recent years. Yes, I'm talking about Arch.
All that said, I love Tumbleweed. They're also working on providing systemd-boot and it was nice when I tried it. And the one thing that i haven't seen anybody else implement in a comparable manner is Snapshots. Gotta love it.
Arch does not just randomly break and Zypper is unfathomably slow.
Arch does not just randomly break
You might be right. However, the experiences of my own and many others seem to 'contradict' this.
FWIW, I've run Arch and EndeavourOS in the past. And, for some reason, (seemingly) entirely out of the blue, it just stopped booting. I put in some effort with troubleshooting. But, at some point, I just got tired and/or didn't ever want to deal with this anymore and left it for what it is. I've left Arch behind me ever since.
To be fair, I've had a similar experience with Nobara. So, this is not necessarily an 'Arch-thing'. However, a significant part of the community has experienced similar issues on non-stable distros (i.e. distros that don't have a slow release cycle).
While I'd be the first to admit that this is (perhaps) merely a skill issue, the fact of the matter is that similar experiences on other OSes are practically non-existent. Hence, it's a hard sell to someone that has enjoyed 'stability' in the past.
Not a fan of the chameleon, but I do like the branding on the other versions, like MicroOS. Looks like runes or Unown pokemon.
I always find it interesting, when people claim they don't like Arch, because it breaks, supposedly.
Out of genuine curiosity, what did you find, that kept breaking, that wasn't user error, and wasn't easily reparable?
Never tried it, but everyone I know who has tried it says its the most stable rolling release OS ever. That is pretty cool. Btrfs support is cool too, copy-on-write, deduplication, and whole-disk snapshot and rollback capability, its great for keeping your data safe.
I don't care about rolling releases, I get my stability from Debian, or sometimes Mint. If I want the latest software I'll install Guix packages or FlatPaks. And I can still use Btrfs on Debian.
I used both tumbleweed and leap for a bit and they really are good. I'm actually using tumbleweed on a home server right now and it's been a champ. But...
My biggest gripe is opensuse seems to use different package names than any of the other distros for basic packages. I had to install a package that used capitals in the package name, and coming from mostly debian based distros, that made me rationally angry when trying to find the package I needed. I think it was network-manager or something that's usually installed by default and I wanted something familiar.
Online directions for setting something up usually has deb and/or fedora rpm directions, which is usually just some difference in package names and the equivalent install command, searching the base package will let you figure it out. I had very few issues following debian/Ubuntu directions and translating them for fedora. Opensuse is always non-existent so you always need to translate those directions for opensuse, which is usually like doing it for fedora until you run into point (1).
I agree that (1) is particularly painful on openSUSE, because of (2), and I do agree that Fedora tends to be more similar to Debian/Ubuntu, but package names differing between distros is pretty universal for any non-derivative distros.
For example, I tried to use nix-shell, which basically lets you set up a small, reproducible build environment using packages from NixOS. And it was working excellently, except I could not figure out for the life of me, what the names of the NixOS packages are that provide certain C libraries...
I use openSUSE. Zypper is a PITA compared to pacman.
Why the fuck does it ask for root password to change every little thing? Want to change network password? Root password. Install a flatpak? Root password. Sneeze? You guessed it, root password.
I'd be using it instead of Fedora if it wasn't for that shit. I even tried to spin myself a custom OpenSuse ISO...
It might be a bit tighter than Fedora, I haven't tried Fedora so I wouldn't know but Flatpaks can still be installed as user, no pw. All mine are, by default.
The default config for sudo is to ask for root password. I too was annoyed by this and had to change the setting to ask for the user password, not root, every time I used sudo.
🤦
"MY FAVORITE SPORTSBALL TEAM IS THE BEST!!!"
Can we just moderate these posts?
This post seems lighthearted and not mean-spirited. I do wish they said "awesome" or "great" instead of "the best," but they're not trashing other distros and it is relevant so I don't see the problem.
I would normally 100% agree with you. But if it's an underrated distro, then I tend to be more lean on this. However, I agree that OP should have done a better job at 'advertising' openSUSE. For example; not mentioning YaST is just criminal.
Maybe you should take a break.
That person should take a break, I'm just jostling you know, bit of tomfoolery and joking around.
It's almost like some people like that user should eat some snickers and read a book on bunny rabbits or something
I think Tumbleweed is pretty great, Slowroll even better for people that just need a working Distro.
But Fedora Atomic Desktops win by far over OpenSUSEs "immutable" variants which are just pointless.
To me, it seems as if openSUSE Aeon is heading towards providing an even more stable rolling release distro experience than what people have come to expect from Tumbleweed. However, it seems as if lack of customization/tinkering -even more so than what we expect from other 'immutable' distros- will be the tradeoff. Personally, I regard the diversity in vision for these projects as a net positive; let's see what sticks you know. The project is still relatively young, though.
Let's see what the future will bring us.
The way they handle package updates and backports is one, and I suppose really good. I dont understand Fedoras versioning. One rolling, one semi-rolling, one more stable, that makes sense.
But the most important reason, for me, for image-based/ostree-based distros is the possibility to reset to have a bit-by-bit clone of the upstream configuration.
Normal distros just build up entropy, over time. Users do random shit and it just gets harder and harder for support to find issues. And in my own experience I just started to get weird issues I couldnt trace back.
This may have been because of KDE Plasma 5 which was often pretty messy. But on Kinoite I always knew it was because of this, as I can reset the system and reapply one by one the changes I did.
This is so awesome for administration too.
OpenSUSE does not handle this at all. They just use BTRFS snapshots so your system of reference is your previous one. If you want to resrt to 100% upstream, at least currently you cant.
You cant even see the changes you did to the system.
I asked them how to install Librewolf on there, where to add their repo. They to the end did not answer my question, but instead told me
This is complete nonsense, their system is just useless in such a state. And the people were so toxic, ignorant and childish, ... yeah no.
I asked them "does your package manager support resetting the system" and other questions where the answer is no, they ignored them and kicked me out of the group.
I dont cry that nobody cares for their 2 semi-supported Distros lol. Fedora meanwhile is flourishing!
/rant end.
Thanks for the reply!
In general, I'd have to say I agree with your post:
However, I'm hopeful of what they'll cook for their 'immutable' spins.
Btw, FWIW, regarding the reset option, perhaps there's reason to be optimistic regarding its future; here's Richard Brown on the topic and here's a page he refers to related to this.
I always was and will be team SUSE, no matter what. With other distros I had bad experiences at some point. Never with SLES or OpenSUSE. Although, currently I have no OpenSUSE installation, as it is not suitable for gaming.
What makes it unsuitable?
Oh, as with any Linux, all of them are for everything suitable if you have the time to modify everything. I‘d rather use a Linux which is optimized for gaming, e.g. uses Zen kernel, ProtonPlus, Steam with gamescope and gamemode, HDR enabled by default due to the correct DisplayPort drivers, and many other things.
In terms of frames per second, it is probably only slightly better than an unoptimized OpenSUSE
Zen Kernel is the opposite of "optimized for gaming".
It was once the default kernel for out-of-the-box gaming simply because it had fsync patches integrated. But since fsync is in the normal kernel for quite some time now zen is obsolete for that purpose.
I mean it's still an okay choice for any desktop environment but it is definitely not optimized for gaming as it sacrifices throughput and is more tailored to multitasking of a lot of smaller things running to provide a snappy desktop experience.
TIL … thank you very much for clearing that up, very much appreciated! :)
I'll concede that the logo is good but I found the package manager confusing. Also I like compiling packages from source so only a couple of distros allow me to fully dive into that. It's Gentoo for me, I'm afraid.
I worked on a SuSE-derived Linux back in the day.
What we agreed we'd be getting: a working product ready for customization an extension as required. What we got: a corpse with the skin and organs removed, effectively kicked out of a van at our doorstep before it drove off.
It's not that the packaging was bad - it was - but that the environment in and relations outside the organization were terrible. As it impacted our work and probably impacted their quality long-term, I've avoided it since.
The main reason I've steered clear of OpenSUSE is its commercial backing as opposed to being a true non-profit community distro like Debian or Arch.
Red Hat have influenced Fedora decisions before and obviously blew up CentOS as a RHEL clone when they had the chance. Canonical constantly make bad decisions with Ubuntu.
I will add that I've heard nothing but good things about SUSE and OpenSUSE. SLES sounds like a decent alternative to RHEL and the OpenSUSE community distros sound pretty solid.
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Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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