openSUSE 12.2 Released

By Yorak
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Grand Master

Yorak

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Dear users, developers, and Geekos around the world ?openSUSE 12.2 is ready for you! Two months of extra stabilization work have resulted into a stellar release, chock-full of goodies, yet stable as you all like it.

The latest release of the world?s most powerful and flexible Linux Distribution brings you speed-ups across the boardwith a faster storage layer in Linux 3.4 and accelerated functions in glibc and Qt, giving a more fluid and responsive desktop. The infrastructure below openSUSE has evolved, bringing in mature new technologies like GRUB2 and Plymouth and the first steps in the direction of a revised and simplified UNIX file system hierarchy. Users will also notice the added polish to existing features bringing an improved user experience all over. The novel Btrfs file system comes with improved error handling and recovery tools, GNOME 3.4, developing rapidly, brings smooth scrolling to all applications and features a reworked System Settings and Contacts manager while XFCE has an enhanced application finder.

?We are proud of this release, maintaining the usual high openSUSE quality standards.? said Andrew Wafaa from the openSUSE Board. ?The delay in the schedule caused by our growth in the last two years means we have to work on scaling our processes. Now this release is out and with the upcoming openSUSE conference in October in Prague, the community has time and opportunity to work on that.?

A few of the most notable changes are in the following areas:

Performance - From the kernel to the desktop, openSUSE 12.2 brings you speed-ups: Linux 3.4 has a faster storage layer to prevent blocking during large transfers. glibc 2.15, the basic library, improves the performance of many functions especially on 64 bit systems. Systemd 44 enables faster booting. And KDE 4.8.4 builds on Qt 4.8.1 to make the desktop more responsive.

Evolution - openSUSE adopts the latest developments in Linux distribution technology as they mature. The GRUB2 bootloader is now the default, we?ve begun the process of revising and simplifying the UNIX filesystem hierarchy to improve compatibility across distributions, and during startup and and shutdown Plymouth 0.8.6.1 provides flicker-free transitions and attractive animations.

Polish - GNOME 3.4 introduces smooth scrolling in all applications, a reworked System Settings app and polished Contacts manager. XFCE 4.10 has an improved application finder and allows vertical panels. The Dolphin file manager is both prettier and faster.

Innovation - XOrg 1.12 introduces support for multitouch input devices, and multi-seat deployments. Mozilla Firefox supports the latest Web technologies. The llvmpipe software 3D renderer enables Gnome Shell and virtual machines to use compositing even where no 3D hardware is present. GIMP 2.8 and Krita 2.4 make Free image processing and natural media painting competitive with proprietary tools. Tomahawk Player promises to make listening to music on your computer a social experience.

Stability - LibreOffice 3.5 continues to refine the Free office suite experience with many additions and improvements. KDE 4.8.4?s email and calendaring applications have increased stability, while the next-generation btrfs filesystem now has improved error handling and recovery tools.

Management - The 3.4 kernel allows the capping of CPU usage across entire groups of processes. The new version of systemd offers a watchdog function for supervising services under its control, as well as a new process management tool. Sysadmins will benefit from a new suite of Digital Forensics/Incident Response tools.

Novelty - A set of heavyweight scientific tools brings math applications such as numeric computation, plotting, and visualization to openSUSE. The Stellarium astronomical simulator lets you explore the night sky without a telescope. Programmers will enjoy version 1.0.2 of Google?s Go language, as well as the latest C++ language standards implemented in GCC 4.7.1 and Qt Creator 2.5.

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As much as I dislike KDE, this seems to be the only distro that does it right. I am using it right now on my laptop with the Tumbleweed Repository. Highly recommended. :)

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Grand Master

Yorak

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Looks like a nice release, I'll give it a spin on live usb, although I doubt I'll switch from arch anytime soon :)

Yeah, I am surely not going to switch completely from Arch. :p I just thought I would give it a shot. I can never leave my Arch + awesomeWM. <3

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Duffydemon

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Havent tried this from long time, and tired of messing with terminal in arch, gonna give it a try. Thanks for the news OP (Y)

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bjoswald

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Since Gnome has pretty much killed itself I have been paying more attention to KDE. Never was a fan of SUSE in the past but I might give it a try now.

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(Account no longer active)

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I've been trialing OpenSUSE Live CDs over the years, and have to say that version 12.2 with KDE is the most polished version yet. It's become my main OS - I've switched to it from Windows.

KDE version highly recommended. Download a Live CD image (and copy it to a USB drive to boot from: http://en.opensuse.o...ws_Instructions) and give it a try!

Some tips - experiment with "Activities" (right of the Application Launcher Menu), and switch to Classic Menu Style (right click on Application Launcher Menu). It's amazing how customizable the interface is, and how efficient you can make it.

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Guest LiquidCrystalMeth

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Genuinely more excited by this than Windows 8

If you avoid the Gnome version, it will be great.

Havent been hanging out in Linux land for a while, just wondering if anyone has a comment on btrfs, and whether its matured enough to be recommended over ext4?

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Haggis Veteran

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I used gnome on opensuse and have done for a while now and i love it :)

used KDE for a while too but always form gnome prettier

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Southern Patriot

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As much as I dislike KDE, this seems to be the only distro that does it right. I am using it right now on my laptop with the Tumbleweed Repository. Highly recommended. :)

Huh? The article says it uses Gnome.

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Max Norris

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Huh? The article says it uses Gnome.

OpenSUSE has the usual lineup of DE's just like any distro, KDE included, there's a LiveCD for KDE as well. They just seem to put a bit more effort into refining it a bit than most. Not my personal favorite (YaST used to drive me nuts) but the polish is definitely there.

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ViperAFK

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Can you run Tumbleweed from 12.2?

Yes, but right now tumbleweed is temporarily 'frozen' for a month or so:

As part of the Tumbleweed lifecycle, with the 12.2 release of openSUSE,

the openSUSE:Tumbleweed repo is now empty so that you can start out with

a "clean" 12.2 release.

It will stay that way for a few weeks for things to settle down with

12.2, and then will start to add packages back to it (new kernel, KDE

4.9, etc.) as time permits.

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