openSuSE 11 Released

Wow, I am blown away here folks! It looks as if Novell has released openSuSE 11 today and the list of included software is simply amazing! Keep in mind, this is openSuSE, meaning that all of the software in the release is opensource. No hefty license fees or proprietary file formats to worry about here!

I have only been playing with version 10.3 for about a week now, since I am not much of an early adopter when it comes to my personal computer, however my new hard drive from CompUSA is arriving tomorrow so I have already grabbed the torrent. Just to show you how early this was, the openSuSE 11 DVD ISO was around a 10 hour download, much much longer than any other version thus far since there aren’t many seeds, 1674 thus far and 1936 peers according to Vuze.

Finally, KDE4 is offered as a standalone desktop, not the preview crap from 10.3! I did see that Firefox 3 is on their list, which rocks! This most likely will put openSuSE in the record books as the first OS to offer Firefox 3 as part of the initial install. But enough of this, let me get you that list of included software (this is the soft list, more to come later):

Office Software

• OpenOffice.org, an office productivity suite compatible with Microsoft Office
• Beagle: powerful desktop search
• Tasque: task management application
• Evolution and Kontact: integrated e-mail, calendaring, and address book

Internet and E-Mail

• Firefox 3.0: Web browser
• Kontact and Evolution: e-mail clients
• Pidgin and Kopete: Support for AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Jabber and other instant messaging protocols
• Ekiga: VoIP
• Ktorrent and Monsoon: BitTorrent filesharing

Multimedia

• F-Spot and GIMP: Photo editing and management
• Gwenview and digiKam: Image viewing
• Banshee and Amarok: MP3 support
• Audacity: Audio editing

Desktop Environments

• GNOME 2.22
• KDE 3.5 and KDE 4.0
• Xfce and many more!

Security

• Immune to Windows viruses, malware, and trojans
• Built-in, easy-to-use firewall
• SpamAssassin spam filtering
• AppArmor security software
• Anti-phishing features in Firefox 3.0

Development Tools

• Eclipse
• MonoDevelop
• Kdevelop
• GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)
• MySQL und PostgreSQL databases

Virtualisation

• Xen
• VirtualBox
• KVM

If you are eager to get started yourself, mosey on over to opensuse.org and give it a gander. I’ll be reporting back often to tell you about the install process and other features as I discover them.

Oh, and one more thing…. (don’t sue me for that Apple! Please?)

The download version of the openSuSE 11.0 DVD comes with Compiz and Compiz Fusion (formerly Beryl) built in. For those of you who haven’t heard any linux news in the past five years, its the software that makes your desktop into a 3D cube and allows the windows themselves to do crazy stuff like burn up instead of close or warp out instead of minimize, provided you have a compatible video card that is. Vista, eat your heart out!

openSuSE 11 Released - Update 1 »« Marque For My MAME Cabinet