openSUSE 11.1 is out

My only reservation is to do with proprietary codecs and drivers, which still needs some work to reach the same level as other distributions. For new users, this is still just too hard. I tried to get 3D working with ATI's proprietary driver and gave up in the end (X worked, but no 3D due to OpenGL errors). The 'recommended packages' feature of the package manager is a great idea and does install MP3 support automatically, but this is still second rate and users expect more. Overall I really feel that this version of openSUSE provides a complete desktop experience for the user. What does it have to offer you? Download it and give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

What's new in openSUSE 11.1?

Tons. :-)

More specifically, we have a lot of new software -- OpenOffice.org 3.0, GNOME 2.24, KDE 4.1.3, Banshee 1.4, and a lot more. We've also updated some important YaST modules (YaST is the system management tool for openSUSE) including the partitioner, printer module, and security module that allows users to examine their system's security.

This release also introduces a major new feature called Nomad, which is a new remote desktop technology. (http://en.opensuse.org/Nomad)

This was also a major update in other ways. First, this is the first release that was built in the openSUSE Build Service, which is an important step for allowing more contributions from the community over time. Also, we introduced a new, more friendly license and we removed some pieces of software from the DVD media that prevented redistribution, so now openSUSE is easier to obtain and distribute than ever before.

The new kernel version update, to the 2.6.27 release series, provides support for many new devices and platforms over the previous openSUSE releases.

I am excited about Mono 2.0 in openSUSE 11.1 as it brings a number of major performance, memory, and stability improvements to our applications. From the developer point of view, Mono is more compelling than ever with full C# 3.0 support. openSUSE is hands-down the best distribution for developing on Mono.

My favourite OpenOffice.org feature, and a world-first, is the split build; this allows you to quickly compile just 'writer' against your installed libraries (finally, like all other applications); so you can get involved with OO.o much more easily.

My second favourite is the console help when invoking a missing tools, telling you the command to install it and the respective package - that combined with the speedy zypper makes life exceeding smooth.

I think one of my favorite 11.1 features must be that user switching (switching to another logged-in user's desktop without logging out) finally works seamlessly with GDM.

Of all the features and updates in this release, there are two things that really make the release for me. One is the KDE 4 desktop, which has come a very long way. It has a lot of polish and I'm really impressed with the improvements since 11.0. The other is the new license, which makes openSUSE much easier to redistribute and gets rid of the EULA that openSUSE used to have.