Linux (OpenSUSE)
History
SUSE was developed in Germany in 1992 by Thomas Fehr, Roland Dyroff, Burchard Steinbild, and Hubert Mantel. OpenSUSE is the open source, community-based Linux distribution of SUSE Linux. A community-based distro means that the distribution is not associated with any company. It can be sponsored but the whole development, maintenance and support are based on the community of that distro. Many big companies like RedHat and SUSE have their enterprise version distro as well as community-based distro.
Features
As discussed previously, OpenSUSE is the open source version of SUSE Linux and created based on SUSE codes. So, it offers all the features SUSE offers apart from enterprise support. OpenSUSE has almost all the features that a common Linux distribution offers. It has a graphical UI and also a command line. Moreover, it supports many software packages as well as many open source software.
Two types of version are available of OpenSUSE, Leap and Tumbleweed. Leap is the stable version with stable release. Tumbleweed is the rolling release version. A rolling release is where the updates are kept pushing regularly. You’ll always have the latest and greatest software updates and packages as soon as possible.
Why use it?
The OpenSUSE installer is really useful and easy to use for users to install and modify the operating system. Moreover, you are a techy who likes to always keep yourself up-to-date, you might like the rolling release, tumbleweed a lot. OpenSUSE as a distro is a very stable one, for example the stable release Leap. OpenSUSE might not be very user friendly at first, but you will get used to it eventually. As an enterprise backed distro, you can be sure of having the best update and features possible to be offered as well as have the community support as well.
Releases
10.x series
The initial stable release from the openSUSE Project was SUSE Linux 10.0, released on October 6, 2005.[49] This was released as a freely downloadable ISO image and as a boxed retail package, with certain bundled software only included in the retail package.[50]
On May 11, 2006, the openSUSE Project released SUSE Linux 10.1, with the mailing list announcement identifying Xgl, NetworkManager, AppArmor and Xen as prominent features.[51]
For their third release, the openSUSE Project renamed their distribution, releasing openSUSE 10.2 on December 7, 2006. Several areas that developers focused their efforts on were reworking the menus used to launch programs in KDE and GNOME, moving to ext3 as the default file system, providing support for internal readers of Secure Digital cards commonly used in digital cameras, improving power management framework (more computers can enter suspended states instead of shutting down and starting up) and the package management system. This release also featured version 2.0 of Mozilla Firefox.
The fourth release, openSUSE 10.3, was made available as a stable version on October 4, 2007.[52] An overhaul of the software package management system (including support for 1-Click-Install), legal MP3 support from Fluendo and improved boot-time are some of the areas focused on for this release.
11.x series
openSUSE 11.0 was released on June 19, 2008. It includes the latest version of GNOME and two versions of KDE (the older, stable 3.5.9 and the newer 4.0.4).[53][54] It comes in three freely downloadable versions: a complete installation DVD (including GNOME, KDE3, and KDE4), and two Live CDs (GNOME, and KDE4 respectively). A KDE3 Live CD was not produced due to limited resources.[54] Package management and installation were made significantly faster with ZYpp.[55]
openSUSE 11.1 was released on December 18, 2008. Updated software includes GNOME 2.24.1, Plasma 4.1.3 + K Desktop Environment 3.5.10, OpenOffice.org 3.0, VirtualBox 2.0.6, Compiz 0.7.8, Zypper 1.0.1, continued improvement in the software update stack, X.Org 7.4, Xserver 1.5.2, and Linux kernel 2.6.27.7.[56] openSUSE 11.1 was the first Evergreen supported release.[57]
openSUSE 11.2[58] was released on November 12, 2009.[59] It includes Plasma 4.3, GNOME 2.28, Mozilla Firefox 3.5, OpenOffice.org 3.1, improved social network support, updated filesystems such as Ext4 as the new default and support for Btrfs, installer support for whole-disk encryption, significant improvements to YaST and zypper, and all ISO images are hybrid and now support both USB and CD-ROM boot.[60][61]
openSUSE 11.3 was released on July 15, 2010. It includes Plasma 4.4.4, GNOME 2.30.1, Mozilla Firefox 3.6.6, OpenOffice.org 3.2.1, SpiderOak support, support for the Btrfs filesystem and support for LXDE. It also updates the Linux kernel to version 2.6.34.[60]
openSUSE 11.4 was finished on March 3, 2011 and released on March 10, 2011. It includes Plasma 4.6.0, GNOME 2.32.1, Mozilla Firefox 4.0 beta 12, and switched from OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice 3.3.1. It updates the Linux kernel to version 2.6.37.[62]
12.x series
openSUSE 12.1 was released on November 16, 2011. This includes Plasma 4.7 and GNOME 3.2 and Firefox 7.0.1. The Linux kernel was updated to 3.1.0[63] It also introduced an advanced disk snapshot tool, called Snapper, for managing Btrfs snapshots.[64] openSUSE 12.1 was also the first release of openSUSE to use systemd by default rather than the traditional System V init. Users can still select to boot to System V init at startup time.
openSUSE 12.2 was to be released on July 11, 2012, but was postponed due to persistent stability issues.[65] The final release candidate was eventually announced on August 2, 2012 and the final release date was September 5, 2012.[66] 12.2 includes the desktop environments Plasma 4.8, GNOME 3.4, Firefox 14.0.1, and Xfce 4.10 and now uses Plymouth and GRUB 2 by default.
openSUSE 12.3 was released on schedule on March 13, 2013. This includes Plasma 4.10, GNOME 3.6, Firefox 19.0, LibreOffice 3.6, and the removal of SuSEconfig. Also, the Live CD images were replaced with Live USB images, and an Xfce rescue image.
13.x series
openSUSE 13.1 was released on November 19, 2013, and includes updates to Plasma 4.11, GNOME 3.10, Firefox 25.0, and LibreOffice 4.1. Some other changes include a YaST port to Ruby, the LightDM KDE greeter, and experimental Wayland support in the GNOME Shell and KDE Plasma Desktop. openSUSE 13.1 is an Evergreen supported release, meaning it will receive community patches for 18 months after SUSE support ends.[67]
openSUSE 13.2 was released on November 4, 2014, and includes updates to Plasma 4.11, KDE Applications 4.14, GNOME 3.14.1, Firefox 33.0 and LibreOffice 4.3.2.2.
Leap 42.x series
The openSUSE team decided that the next version would be based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). They named it “Leap 42” (42 being the answer to life, the universe and everything);[68] this was a temporary anomaly in the version number sequence, as the following release series was numbered 15.X.
Leap 42.2 features KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS as its default desktop environment.[69]
Leap 15.x series
openSUSE Leap 15[70][71] is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE). The name “Leap 15” is meant to match the SUSE Linux Enterprise version it is based on. Leap 15 (just like SUSE Linux Enterprise 15) uses Linux kernel 4.12 LTS, and the default desktop is KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS. It also allows users to switch to its enterprise variant — SUSE Linux Enterprise 15.
