Coming along strong: First Look at openSUSE 11 Beta 2

os11logofy6 Coming along strong: First Look at openSUSE 11 Beta 2 “There are a lot of things to like in openSUSE 11 and it will make a good choice for many users—it is already shaping up to provide better PulseAudio integration and stronger desktop search capabilities than Ubuntu, for instance. OpenSUSE also has excellent support for KDE 4, which is why we have used it as our reference platform for KDE testing and reviews.”

We tested the openSUSE 11 beta 2 LiveCD installers, which are available with either GNOME or KDE 4. We installed both flavors so that we could see both desktop environments in action. The LiveCD images booted without any problems and provided a reasonably functional desktop experience. In both the KDE and GNOME environments, an icon on the desktop provides easy access to the installer.

The installation process is relatively simple and intuitive. The graphical installer, which is built on SUSE’s YaST framework, takes the user through a series of configuration steps before the installation begins. The user simply needs to select a keyboard layout, specify their timezone, partition their disk, and provide basic login information. The GNOME-based installer uses GTK and the KDE-based installer uses Qt, so they largely share the look and feel of the underlying desktop environment. The GNOME LiveCD installation program crashed once during our tests and had to be restarted, but we encountered no problems with the KDE installer.

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