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Why Use (and avoid) openSUSE? Leave your feedback!

reddit.com › r › openSUSE › comments › t9ozk9 › why_use_and_avoid_opensuse_leave_your_feedback

I chose Tumbleweed because I'd heard the Plasma experience was very good (it is). I stayed because it's a rolling release, but with snapshots so you always have a way to get a working machine even when an update breaks something. I thought I'd enjoy Yast more than I do- it often seems to be duplicating features offered by the DE, which can be very confusing. Answer from sound-man-rob on reddit.com

reddit.com › r/opensuse › why use (and avoid) opensuse? leave your feedback!

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Why Use (and avoid) openSUSE? Leave your feedback!

March 8, 2022 -

As a new linux user (1 year), seeing all the distros out there is very overwhelming and it's hard to grasp the true nature of a distro based only on short term reviews that miss a lot of the important details. So what better thing than to ask it's users the reasons behind them using it.

Write everything that comes to mind for why you chose, use and recommend openSUSE. What makes it special? And what things do you dislike?

I chose Tumbleweed because I'd heard the Plasma experience was very good (it is). I stayed because it's a rolling release, but with snapshots so you always have a way to get a working machine even when an update breaks something. I thought I'd enjoy Yast more than I do- it often seems to be duplicating features offered by the DE, which can be very confusing.

Use: It's rolling release, but always tested. Reliable Good defaults for all desktop environments. YaST2 - a piece of software for configuring your system. Automatic snapshots, very easy to rollback in case of breakage. Friendly community, backed by a corporate entity. Heavy security focus. Avoid: Smaller package count compared to Debian/Ubuntu and Arch Linux. Relying on flatpaks/unofficial repositories for proper media and audio playback. More difficult to use: get ready to go mad while on a printer rabbit hole. Install is quite slow, the same goes for Zypper, the package manager. You either choose an incredibly minimal install or a somewhat bloated one (recommended packages). Some actions require root password, such as configuring your printer. Overall, it's a good distribution, I might've missed some points, but for the community and security focus, it's definitely worth a try.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › is it good to use opensuse as a daily os?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Is it good to use openSUSE as a daily OS?

June 12, 2023 -

I think maybe?

Yes. OpenSUSE is one of the oldest distributions out there that even predates Red Hat. Back in the early days SUSE were considered the only project which had a solid KDE implementation, even to this day. As for why I believe OpenSUSE is great for daily driving: Tumbleweed always receives the latest packages from upstream development. This means that the distribution is guaranteed to work on the latest hardware and benefit from patches for optimal performance. As an example, Tumbleweed gained the optional x86-64-v3 packages while Arch, Fedora still lack these optimizations. On top of that, it also outperformed other distributions including Arch in various benchmarks. Btrfs with Snapper can be utilized so the system can be rolled back to a working snapshot in case an update breaks anything. Which leads on the further point... Packages are tested through OpenQA before they are distributed, ensuring that updates are stable, and if they pass the extensive QA, it ships automatically. So in most cases, OpenSUSE often gets the latest versions of software hours to days after upstream publishes those changes. On Arch, it took over a month for the maintainer to update GNOME 44. OBS - The Open Build System which is similar to the AUR allows anyone to create and publish packages not found in the official repositories or packman. IMO this is a better approach to COPR or the AUR as they still go through openQA to detect problems with compilation. OpenSUSE is desktop environment agnostic. GNOME, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon etc are all a priority and receive the same level of development. Other distros have been known to have weird quirky behaviors on certain DEs that doesn't seem to be an issue here. Zypper is probably the most cohesive feature packed package manager out there. It can seamlessly change vendors to a different package source to avoid dependency/system breakages, provides solutions on conflicting packages and much more. OpenSUSE combats software problems in smarter ways than other distributions. They have extensive backports for almost everything from the kernel,X11,firmware,KDE etc all of which is provided officially and not from third party developers like Ubuntu PPAs. This way, the software installed from SUSE directly can be trusted. YaST is an amazing system configuration tool that allows you to administer the installation with a breeze. IMO this is one of the greatest selling points to this distro, and it never disappoints. Security - OpenSUSE is more hardened by default than Arch/Fedora/Ubuntu, meaning it can be trusted and dependent on. If you value security highly, it remains of the best options for security conscious individuals. All in all, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/MicroOS are the best distributions available in my biased opinion. Combine this with the long track record of SUSE making solid distros, it simply cannot be beaten for desktop use.

Why wouldn't it be? openSUSE seems like one of the most reliable options.

Videos

openSUSE Tumbleweed: My First Impressions - YouTube

OpenSUSE: A Beautiful Linux Distro - YouTube

September 13, 2020

openSUSE Leap 15.2 | Review and Final Thoughts - YouTube

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed 1 year review - Pros and Cons and some minor ...

February 17, 2024

10 Things openSUSE Could Do Better

February 26, 2025

Why I Love openSUSE - YouTube

reddit.com › r/linux › is opensuse underrated or what?

r/linux on Reddit: Is OpenSuse underrated or what?

November 15, 2021 -

I have recently tried out OpenSuse Tumbleweed and boy oh boy do i like it. The thing i like most is that it is rolling release, nearly bleeding-edge and it is stable! I rarely hear anyone talk about OpenSuse, whether it is a complaint or praise. I feel like OpenSuse is highly underrated. What do you guys think and what is your experience?

I rarely hear anyone talk about OpenSuse This could be due to the fact that OpenSuse is mostly used in the European region. In my opinion, Suse / OpenSuse is a distribution that should at least not be underestimated. If only because it has been around since 1994. Edit: And if I'm not mistaken, btrfs snapshots are preconfigured in the default configuration so that you can quickly restore the original state in case of a problematic update or a layer 8 problem, for example.

I DD'd OpenSuse for awhile. I like it a lot and it is underrated. My only complaint from that time was there was not as many packages that I needed in their repos, which sucked because Zypper is a really cool package manager. I hope package availability has gotten better, and at that time supplementing the official official repos was a pain (I think they call them HCL?).

reddit.com › r/opensuse › opensuse is great for people that understand linux, but is it really for everyone?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: openSUSE is Great for People That Understand Linux, But is it Really for Everyone?

August 29, 2021 -

Let me preface this by saying I am very much new to openSUSE and it's community. I thought I might offer some insight as an outsider, and try to get some feedback to understand the direction of the project as a whole. I'm a Linux user of about 17 years. I have been running Linux full time on my personal hardware for about half that, aside from the occasional Windows game / application which runs in a VM with GPU pass-through these days.

I'm not strictly against proprietary software, but support / promote open-source and free (as in speech) software/solutions as much as I can to my clients, friends, family, etc. In my opinion things like proprietary codecs, video drivers, and other software are a necessary evil with the current state of Linux. To me, being able to own your data and the tools to easily manage it takes priority over being able to modify those tools. Of course there's something to be said for security and piece of mind when using free (as in speech) tools in your workflow.

The position I constantly find myself in is the distribution and software choices I make as an advanced user, is not something I feel I can recommend to those that seek advice from me most of time. I've been running Arch on the desktop almost exclusively for the last 5 years. However, I find myself recommending Ubuntu or Pop!_OS for most newcomers, but spend very little time dealing with these distributions first hand. I am, 99% of the time, working with Arch, CentOS, and RHEL.

So this leaves me in a position, where I know very little about the solutions I'm recommending. When these people who look up to me, inevitably have problems, I often find myself wasting a lot of time researching the quirks of these particular platforms. I had a friend upset with me over this last month. She asked me if I'm not willing to use it myself, then why did I ever recommend it to her? I couldn't come up with a good answer for that, and it is really starting to bother me.

With Red Hat killing off CentOS, and what I believe to be a loss of community focus with the IBM acquisition, I've found myself seeking other options. I know many are moving to community driven projects like AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux. However, I can't help but feel a little jaded about the position Red Hat has put me in by cutting 9 years off the lifespan of the thousands of CentOS deployments I'm responsible for, seemingly overnight. I'm not sure I can, in good faith, stay within the Red Hat ecosystem.

This has led me to openSUSE and SLE. I greatly appreciate the efforts SUSE has made in this space. Bringing the Leap code base so close to SLE. SUSE is actually giving back to the community in exchange for the upstream community contributions. Red Hat seems to be taking advantage of the community in the form of CentOS Stream, but It's a one-way street, with the stable product behind a pay-wall.

Please understand, I'm not trying to bash the openSUSE project with what I'm about to say. Overall, I love openSUSE and see great potential, I'm just not exactly sure where all of this leaves me in my search for a new home. I'm hoping we can have a productive conversation around this. I'm open to any and all feedback / recommendations. I'm very interested to see where others fall on this topic.

I love the fact that I have found a family of products I'm willing to use on my own hardware (Tumbleweed), and on the server (Leap and SLE). But there is still one thing nagging at me. I can't bring myself to recommend it for novice users. In my view there seems to be little polish out of the box, especially as a GNOME user who finds vanilla GNOME to be practically unusable. My understanding is KDE's the flagship desktop, but even then, I feel lacks a lot of polish. The direction of the project seems to be focused on the server, with little attention given to the desktop.

As a power user I've found so many things with stock openSUSE that annoy the hell out of me. Most of these things can be solved fairly easily, but man does it wear on me. The installer, while powerful, is slowest and clunkiest process I've ever seen in a modern distribution. High DPI is flat out broken on the installer and welcome app. Application availability is kind of a problem. I've been able to work around this mostly with OBS, but not everything is there, and using a website to pull down apps seems like a step backwards. OPI works well, but man is it slow compared to other tools like yay on Arch. I find Zypper to be slow, although a tuned DNF gets me to a comfortable spot. There's just such a long list I don't want to get into right now.

To summarize I think openSUSE is a fantastic distribution for those who know what they want, and how to make it work. I just find myself in a position where, because of what I view as shortcomings of the distribution, I can't recommend it to everyone. From my limited time in the openSUSE forums and reddit, the desktop user experience doesn't seem to be a real focus of the project.

Tumbleweed for a new user is perhaps not the best choice, perhaps Leap is better. I can't tell you in general if openSUSE is suitable for a beginner, any system that is new at the beginning is complicated. When I started using the PC, XP seemed really complicated, I think too often people forget the first few times, regardless of the system. A pc is something complicated, so even the simplest system always seems complicated the first few times. So it really depends on people's willingness to understand how it works. However I don't think Ubuntu is simpler, openSUSE allows you to easily restore the system in case you do any damage, Ubuntu isn't and this makes openSUSE certainly more reassuring.

I do believe Ubuntu is better for someone new to Linux, not much because of usability but instead bc of its large community (askubuntu is really useful). Even better that Ubuntu, ZorinOS. Version 16 is just amazing at explaining things for someone new to Linux, even going as far as recommending alternative open source apps when someone tries to run a popular .exe file. They also provide the option to install it through wine and that's easy too (just one click). To top it off they have snapd and flatpak enabled by support. The flathub repository is added as well (that's better than what elementary does). A new user doesn't care about snap vs flatpak, they just want apps and that's smth that Linux Mint doesn't understand. The only problem I used to have with openSUSE was the packagekit thing that would run in the background impeding me to run YAST. But that is gone now. I think that If someone has enough knowledge about tech to run Fedora or any equivalent distro they will be able to run openSUSE or SUSE. And by that I'm just referring about people that have the will to get to know and use Linux like they did with Windows/MacOS in the past, not people that just want the browser working and keep on with their lifes without feeling any changes in their computers. I'm not going to address the Gnome thing bc that's is a matter of taste. I love vanilla Gnome and think it is perfect for me.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › why do you use opensuse?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: why do you use opensuse?

May 22, 2024 -

I use linux mint can you give me some reasons to switch to opensuse?

i like chameleons

I can't tell you why you should switch, but the reason I switched is because I wanted a rolling release distro and, every once in awhile, updating Arch would break something. OpenSUSE Slowroll just works. I haven't had a single issue when updating thus far.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › why is opensuse so unpopular?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Why is OpenSUSE so unpopular?

December 8, 2020 -

I remember when I was first getting into linux, OpenSUSE was a major player in the Linux world alongside Ubuntu, Debian and Arch.

Fast forward to today, and I barely hear about it. I fired Tumbleweed up in a VM, and in my experience it's pretty decent. Supports most software, zypper and Yast are pretty cool, has both a stable (Leap) and latest/rolling (Tumbleweed) edition, wiki is about as good as Fedora or Ubuntu.

So what happened? Why does OpenSUSE seem so secluded and not-talked-about compared to other distros? Is it just lack of marketing?

I think "overlooked" is a better term here than "unpopular" - many that don't use it simply have not heard of it, where "unpopular" suggests that they have made a conscious decision not to use it for one reason or another.

My personal opinion is that it's almost completely in the marketing. OpenSUSE is an incredible distro by almost any measure. But take a look at the website. It sucks. I've studied a lot of marketing and OpenSUSE is a great example of how you don't get more users. It's clear from the site that it's only about developers and power users. When you first go to the site you're greeted with Tumbleweed and Leap links. That's incredibly confusing to new users. I've come across discussions on Reddit where even experienced users are confused by which one they should choose. After that it's stuff about OBS, openQA, YaST, and Kiwi. Why should I care about those? Then some news followed by code and hardware links. There isn't anything about why you should select it or even a link to documentation or any sort of help. I love OpenSUSE and I've used it for 15+ years. I advocate for it on Reddit. But for the life of me I still have to look for the documentation! If you go to opensuse.org/documentation you get one of the most unhelpful screens you could find. I had to click around to find the link I'm used to. doc.opensuse.org is where I usually go. How does OpenSUSE communicate with people? I don't know. It's scattered across forums, chat, social media. I was on Reddit with a simple question and one of the top people in OpenSUSE answered it. He was rude and the response felt like I was being talked down to. He didn't want to justify a decision that happened somewhere in OpenSUSE land. It was off-putting and not how someone should respond on social media. I'm writing this on my OpenSUSE desktop. I love it and I feel it's one of the most underrated distros out there. But it's website and marketing stinks.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › why opensuse is my favorite linux distro

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Why OpenSUSE is my favorite Linux Distro

April 12, 2022 -

Tried Ubuntu, Fedora and lastly OpenSUSE, OpenSUSE is my favorite so far.

Unmodified pure Desktop environment (GNOME) (unlike Ubuntu).
Rolling release with new features and version releasing ASAP (the reason why I left Fedora since GNOME 42 landed on OpenSUSE first).
Snapper and snapshots to the rescue.
Yast which provides an easier way to manage packages and patterns.
Good documentation

overall, nothing to complain about so far.

I hate the hyperbole of the modern era. Why OpenSUSE is my favorite Linux Distro (the reason why I left Fedora since GNOME 42 landed on OpenSUSE first). overall, nothing to complain about so far. None of that is wrong per se, but its such an intentionally weird way of phrasing New to OpenSUSE, left Fedora for Gnome 42, Arch was overwhelming but I like that level of documentation. So far so good, could be a new favorite.

After saying some points that I dislike about openSUSE, switching back and forward with Debian, in my second pc. I am thinking stick with openSUSE TW: Installator is one of my favorites with fedora (just because is the fastest installer). All packages. Updated: C++, Cmake, SDL2. All desktops Yast Some flaws: Zypper, for me is the slowest, but works. In my case, I need to add many repos, but works. In my last experience, I could not use Unity3d. It will be to try again. Comparing with Debian Sid (because I need some updates packages), lacks some drivers, packages and some are broke.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › open suse is great!

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Open Suse is Great!

July 1, 2023 -

I started using Linux with the idea of making my PC faster yet beautiful.

My first experience was Linux Mint and it was great, but I really wanted a KDE Desktop to have a more aero approach and tried installing KDE within mint, doesn't worked that well for me, so I changed to Kubuntu.

Kubuntu was okay, it was usable and fast compared to Windows, but my updates was really messy and not felt okay using in that state.

So now I am in open suse and man it's really great. The updates is stable yet fast, rarely anything breaks apart and my desktop looks the way I wanted.

Ubuntu user here, I use only the Long Term support versions. The other versions tend to give unstable updates. I also used Opensuse for some years and I also had a very good experience. If I would ever have to leave the ubuntu family, Opensuse would definitely be my first choice

I'm using the Micro OS KDE version and it works extremly well.

Find elsewhere

Google Bing Mojeek

reddit.com › r/opensuse › tried opensuse today and i'm impressed. why isn't this distro more popular?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Tried openSUSE today and I'm impressed. Why isn't this distro more popular?

October 21, 2022 -

I've been distro hopping the last while. I enjoyed the stability and performance of Debian but the software was too old. I tried Fedora but had to use the somewhat hidden everything installer to have a decent installation that wasn't slow and bloated. Then I still had to customize a bunch of things after installation. Fedora has some benefits, but I'm not a big fan of the release cycle.

Tried out openSUSE Tumbleweed as it's a rolling release and it was fairly impressive. Everything looked very professional from the website, installer, and out of the box experience. I'm not sure why people say this distro is hard to install. The installer gave lots of customization options. It was a bit slower to install but that's not a major issue when considering I had plenty of choices to decide what to install. Out of the box, even the default theme looked good.

From what I can tell, openSUSE is like the stability of Debian, the newer software of Fedora, and the rolling release of Arch without the same level of maintenance? Is this too good to be true or is openSUSE just super underrated?

They aren't owned by IBM They didn't spend a TON of money advertising in the US They aren't US based They still don't really advertise much I mean.. those are kinda the reasons... but... tumbleweed is the best damn distro going at the moment imho

It's just super underrated. I've been hopping around a bit myself, and have found exactly what you've said. Even Fedora, which I really like, isn't nearly as fast as my TW setup on the same hardware. openSUSE really should be more popular than it is.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › should i try opensuse

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Should i try OpenSuse

June 26, 2023 -

Hello guys, i am thinking about switching to Suse but i am wonderin what can suse give me that fedora cant. I have heard yast is a great tool, Suse is better with kernel modules (oracle virtualbox) and Tumbleweed is not that bleeding edge as Fedora (thats a good point for me).

I am using my system dual booted with Win 11 for a few reasons and installer of OpenSuse seems a lil confusing.

I have a decent modern laptop with a i5 1135G7 and no dedicated GPU, i am worried about wifi and sound drivers too. For the ones who could check my laptop is Acer A315 58 516F. Only driver issue i experienced is with debian for my sound drivers.

Tumbleweed is rolling release. It means you don't need to wory about huge upgrade from version to version. You always are on the newest version. openSUSE provides openQA and snapshots to reduce issues with updates. It makes it more reliable then other distros, but Tumbleweed should be considered more bleeding edge then Fedora. The main selling points of openSUSE / Tumbleweed for me: btrfs with snapshots, allowing for quick recovery after buggy update or misconfiguration; YaST, being a great tool to do some administrative task that are not very intuitive in console; opi for searching and installing stuff from OBS, which is a collection of repositories from SUSE and users providing lots of additional software; reliable rolling release, for me having access to newest kernel and Mesa for gaming without worrying about stability of my system is a godsend. openSUSE installer allows for way more configuration in the installer then most other distros. The drawback is that it can get confusing for less tech savvy users. In my experience the default values are usually selected correctly, even accounting the dual boot. But i would recommend to go through guided setup when partitioning and making sure your Windows partitions are set to "Shrink if necessary". Also, to add to previous point: It is recommended to use Windows or its tools to shrink partitions beforehand. While Linux tools should work, it is considered safer to use built in tools if possible.

Should probably ask this on the Fedora sub as well, just to be on the safe side

reddit.com › r/linux › opensuse is brilliantly engineered (an appreciation post)

openSUSE is brilliantly engineered (an appreciation post) : r/linux

September 5, 2022 - OpenSUSE wiki is pretty weak and response time for forum posts is again pretty bad · With KDE Neon being a thing I feel OpenSUSE has lost one of its selling points in best in class KDE support · Otherwise its a really good distro with things like automatically configured rollbacks being a great feature, but I feel its got a little way to go to breach into the Fedora/Ubuntu tier

reddit.com › r/opensuse › my personal opensuse opinion of why it's not as popular as ubuntu on the desktop

r/openSUSE on Reddit: My personal openSUSE opinion of why it's not as popular as Ubuntu on the desktop

January 2, 2020 -

I list some points that I found by installing openSUSE and using it for a short time after years of Debian / Ubuntu.

I list the issues by putting myself in the shoes of an inexperienced user.

- The openSUSE installer is a bit chaotic, there are too many technical choices to make, a user with no experience does not know what to choose; xfce, gnome, kde, partitioning etc ... On Ubuntu, just press always click> next.

- The installer does not have a minimal desktop installation, both GNOME and KDE, that Ubuntu has. I don't want to have akonadi and all KDE software on a KDE installation, I prefer to install extra things apart if I want them, as well as on GNOME. I don't want two login managers (lightdm and gdm), I don't want ICEwm and other extras, after an installation of openSUSE I have to remove many packages.

- After installation, on openSUSE you do not have the possibility to install the NVIDIA drviers, audio and video codecs, at least not as simple as on Ubuntu where you just select from the installer a check "install third party codecs and drivers", the user in this way it also has the NVIDIA drivers installed without looking on the internet how to do it. Ubuntu also has an "additional drivers" tool.

- I approached and tried openSUSE only for Btrfs by default, but I also noticed on this that snapper is too technical for a beginner desktop user; snapper creates too many snapshots, I don't have an easy way in the configuration to tell him to limit the snaps, set the snaps only manually, or in automatic mode tell him that I want max 3 snaps per week, look at the simplicity of Timeshift, it's fantastically simple.

- I don't have an easy way on openSUSE to report a bug, on Ubuntu I am motivated because it is very simple: "ubuntu-bug nomepackage" and it takes me to the lauchpad page with all the package and system logs.

These are the main differences that I have noticed. I wrote here because I hope for an improvement in this sense on openSUSE desktop, because to date I see a disinterest on the desktop.

I get your point and the difficulties you had but I don't even think Opensuse want's to be a beginner distro. Other than that, I'll keep it short: The installer is my favourite of all distros. It actually lets you select packages (groups) before installing, that way you can make yourself a tailored minimal install if you want. You'd have to click on Software in the installation overview. It's kinda hidden. When I first started with Linux, I also thought that Codecs and Nvidia are hard to do in Opensuse. But you just have to open Yast, go to the repos and click add. There you can select the community repos Packman (for codecs) and Nvidia for the driver.

Honestly you might be right but its also good to look into the reasoning behind some of your points. You are not going to please everyone here whenever you simplify the process you make it harder to do more advanced stuff. Imho opensuse got the balance right with for ex the hard drive partitioning where it auto recommends sane defaults and provides you with meaningful choice. The same for minimal kde/gnome options. Lets face it most beginners dont care for minimal. Not including codecs is done for legal reasons. Ubuntu is deep in grey area here. And nvidia drivers are a logistical nightmare. Snapper imho can use a few improvements, but its relatively new. And the insane snapshotting helps keep your system relatively safe from messing around in it. Isnt usually the forum/website where you report bugs?

reddit.com › r/opensuse › what are the reasons people use opensuse?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: What are the reasons people use openSUSE?

March 6, 2025 -

I want to hear what you, the actual users, have to say? What makes openSUSE your choice?

Stable-ish rolling release distro with big repos, first rate KDE support, zypper and snapper+btrfs ootb

I tried openSUSE because I wanted my first KDE experience to be on a distro that did KDE right. openSUSE had a reputation for a well-polished KDE - deservedly so. In fact, everything is well-polished. It's my trouble free daily driver.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › honestly, what do other distros do better than opensuse?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Honestly, what do other distros do better than OpenSUSE?

October 21, 2021 -

Im a sysadmin who has been using OpenSUSE for about 2 years now. I love it. All of my personal workstations and servers are running it.

But the whole reason I picked it initially was because I really like BTRFS and their website says it’s great for Sysadmin.

It’s the only workstation distro I’ve ever used so I guess I I’ve been thinking about trying a new distro but I’m honestly failing to see why I would when OpenSUSE offers so much customization.

What makes OpenSUSE so Sysadmin friendly? Why would someone choose something other than OpenSUSE? Surely there must be a reason, right?

as a sysadmin, to me, it feels like SUSE/OpenSUSE is "by engineers for engineers"

Couple reasons: Tumbleweed has the disadvantages that come with rolling release; i.e., proprietary stuff like Nvidia and Steam break sometimes. Yes you can roll back, but it's easier not to worry about it. Leap is too slow even compared to other LTS distros. Frankly Tumbleweed can be an absurd amount of downloading even aside from compatibility issues. I've had more issues with packaging quality than other distros. I remember trying to run gnome-boxes and it missing dependencies so it would segfault every time I'd try to launch a VM. Steam was missing an OpenAL library I needed to launch some games in it's dependency list. Also Tumbleweed having to dup and dup installing recommended packages for patterns is annoying because either I have stuff getting reinstalled, or I have to lock it and have Zypper complain about it every time. YaST is confusing sometimes. For example, what good is it to have a GUI to set up sudo when I still have to visudo to turn off the targetpw default (which is a bizarre default). Switching display managers or auto login? Hiding in the "/etc/sysconfig editor" instead of in the services tab because there's a single service unit that reads a config file instead. Besides, the tools included with DEs cover a lot of that territory now. Not that other distros really do that "better" but it's not always as great it's hyped up to be. The impression I get is that Packman is much sketchier than RPMFusion or Debian's non-free repo. May but be true but there's a lot more "if you use anything other than our defaults you might blow up your system and it will be your fault" surrounding it. So I could see someone choosing a different distro just to get codecs safely if they didn't know better. I'm not trying to say it's bad, there's a lot of really cool stuff OpenSUSE does as well. But those are my experiences with things I found jarring or frustrating with using OpenSUSE.

reddit.com › r/linux › what do you like or dislike about opensuse and fedora? thinking about making a switch.

r/linux on Reddit: what do you like or dislike about OpenSuse and Fedora? thinking about making a switch.

November 2, 2022 -

ive been a Linux user for 13 years. i started out on Kubuntu and am currently using POP_OS. for the most part i have used Debian based distros. i have had my eye on Fedora and OpenSuse for a while and im thinking about making a switch. i prefer Gnome over KDE and id like to avoid a rolling release distro. this would only be for desktop use cases as i have other solutions for my servers.

id like to hear what you all like or dislike!

Edit: I've received a lot of good information, thank you all. since Opensuse will be discontinuing leap in the near future my plan will be to install Fedora on an older machine and test it out for a couple weeks!

If you prefer Gnome and don't like rolling distros, than Fedora is the better choice, imo. The regular release variant of OpenSUSE, called Leap, is going to get discontinued soon and replaced with ALP, which will most likely need a reinstall from the users. So that's really not a good time to switch to it. Tumbleweed is very stable for a rolling release though, if you ever want to try a rolling distro.

Fedora Like: Great blend of stable and predictable release cadence with near bleeding edge software. BTRFS filesystem by default Easy to configure full disk encryption and secure boot Wayland and Pipewire by default Early adopter of new and emerging software and standards Part of a major distro family (Red Hat) with both desktop and server variants One of the more secure distros ootb Lots of interesting development and alternatives to the flagship Fedora Workstation (Silverblue IOT or coreOS for instance) strong and clear stance on free software/closed source software Dislike: Documentation could be better Official repos are smaller than Debian & Ubuntu, unofficial repos are smaller than Arch Community is good, but active community and knowledge base is smaller than Debian/Ubuntu and possibly Arch No built-in utility to manage BTRFS snapshots, no ability to boot into snapshots from Grub. OpenSUSE Like: Tumbleweed is a great choice for a rolling release that tends to be well tested and stable Encryption and Secure Boot implementation is simple and one of the more secure implementations ootb. DE agnostic more or less BTRFS by default, and the super useful Snapper utility to manage snapshots. Enterprise focus so security is not a second class citizen or afterthought like it is with some of the distros targeted at casual users. Part of a well established distro family. Lots of interesting options (MicroOS, Tumbleweed, etc) Pretty good documentation Dislikes: Software repos are a bit more limited than Debian/Ubuntu, and even Fedora I believe Community and community knowledge base are a bit more limited than Debian and Ubuntu or Arch, but probably better than Fedora

reddit.com › r/opensuse › what made you choose opensuse over other distros?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: What made you choose OpenSUSE over other distros?

December 19, 2018 -

I am trying to find a fair comparison of Tumbleweed to Arch. I have used both (though I admit I have more experience with Arch over Tumbleweed) and really like various aspects of both that I like and dislike; for example, I have had more bad updates from the arch repos with no way fix them, but OpenSUSE takes extra steps to prevent it from reinstalling software I remove. On the flip slide, I overall enjoyed the feel of OpenSUSE Tumbleweed more than Arch, but I felt like Arch "felt" more bleeding edge which was nice sometimes.

All the Arch and Tumbleweed comparisons I have seen have been from an Arch user who gave Tumbleweed like a week and presented the discussion to other Arch users mostly.

I am wondering why y'all have chosen OpenSUSE (in general, but Tumbleweed users would be appreciated) over something like Arch or Ubuntu.

I started with Linux waaaay back in the early years - mid-1990s. At the time, there were fewer choices, and I tried out what was then known as S.u.S.E. I then distro hopped through all of them... Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Gentoo, Mandrake, Corel, Oracle Unbreakable, etc., etc.

I'm currently running Tumbleweed and love it. It's the best balance between bleeding edge and stable. The QA guys do an AMAZING job of making sure it's all REALLY well tested before things are deployed into the update repos. It's rock solid, and really professionally put together. Honestly, other than the initial setup warts, it's one of the very best distros out there, especially if you're a KDE fan.

Arch? I love it, but it's a LOT more work to install and keep things humming along smoothly than openSUSE Tumbleweed. Like you pointed out, sometimes updates trash your system. I found that I had to be MUCH more in synch with the community, participating in the forums etc to keep up with what was happening... so I knew when I could cleanly/safely update and when to wait etc. The Arch documentation is really the very very best out there, and I often refer to it when trying to figure out obscure things in openSUSE.

Ubuntu... tried it many many times over the years. I dislike it for a lot of reasons... most of them technical. Ubuntu makes certain choices that I don't like mainly because I come from a more "pure" Unix background. They "break" some unwritten Unix rules to simplify things. It works, and there's nothing wrong with it... but I just don't like how it's done. Ubuntu feels to me like a great starting OS, but once you grow up and mature, you shake off the proverbial training wheels and use an adult distro. The other reason I won't use Ubuntu... Gnome. To my preferred way of thinking/working Gnome is probably the MOST annoying GUI ever made. It's counter-intuitive for me, and frustrating to the point where when I'm forced to use it I sit back and wonder WTF, they removed that option too? And I find myself thinking OSX is better... and that's saying a lot since I detest OSX (despite having to use it daily for my work).

So back to openSUSE. It is NOT perfect, but no OS ever is. I always tell people... if you choose to use openSUSE, do a default install, add the Packman repo, and switch priorities to pull first from Packman before checking the standard repos. That usually clears up almost 100% of the complaints people have with openSUSE (missing core apps, or core apps which are intentionally compiled without proprietary bits.... like VLC which is useless if pulled from the standard repos, but fully functional from Packman). What I REALLY like is I can do a zypper dup pretty much any time and it'll just update cleanly without breaking my install. I haven't had a breaking update in a couple of years now... it really just works and stays working.

The btrfs/snapper snapshots give me the comfort that if things should for some reason break in the middle of the workday, I can reboot, choose the previous snapshot to boot into, do a "sudo snapper rollback" and I'm good again. I can then retry the update, or whatever I felt the need to do that broke things, on the weekend.
zypper is incredibly robust. Which means two things: 1) I actually trust it to not fuck up, as long as I don't fuck up. So, doing those thousands of package updates per month that you do on a rolling release, just doesn't feel as risky with it. 2) I can sidegrade to openSUSE Leap, if I feel like I need a more stable system for the next few months (just take out the Tumbleweed repos, put in the Leap repos and then do a dist-upgrade).
I prefer the community. Arch feels somewhat elitist and like it has a lot of trolls. openSUSE feels like family.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › why do you guys use opensuse? what made you start?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Why do you guys use OpenSUSE? What made you start?

July 22, 2024 - Open suse is so good and simple that i barely have to use the terminal (coming from a place where the terminal was a necessity to even to basic shit. ... MicroOS, and then Aeon brought me to openSUSE / kept me here.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › why opensuse it's very forgotten in the linux community?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: Why opensuse it's very forgotten in the Linux community?

December 28, 2019 -

IMHO Opensuse Leap is better than Ubuntu LTS and Tumbleweed is very good choice like Manjaro

but you read Linux Gaming reddit or Linux Questions reddits, and Opensuse is rare time recommended

i'm alone in this thought?

Full Disclosure: I'm a SUSE employee so I am biased.

With that said...

I am an avid distro hopper. I have come to viscerally dislike most Ubuntu flavors and I while I have a soft spot for Debian I don't particularly like their community. I appreciate Arch but not Arch hipsters. In the past few weeks I've spent a lot of time with Manjaro and OpenBSD. I like both. I really love OpenBSD's "we're not here to babysit you" philosophy which is refreshing and probably infuriating to many. I hate that it doesn't work on a lot of newer hardware well but that's because they are open source purists and refuse to incorporate binary blobs into their distro.

What about OpenSUSE? It works well. What doesn't work? The community. There, I said it. It has no vision. No vision translates IMHO into not serious. A former head of the OpenSUSE team said many times that OpenSUSE doesn't tell people what to do. They can do what they want. That's all well and good. I love freedom! However none of the teams seem to have any kind of leadership. For example, I test and write bugs and occasionally documentation on OpenSUSE Kubic. Never heard of it? I'm not surprised. We have a mailing list, a wiki, and an IRC chat. However new features come out when people finish them but there's no announcement, no meetings, it's just there. If there is a roadmap for the project it's, "on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard."

I think a PR push would help but also so would a vision of what OpenSUSE is and where it is going. For Example, You install Leap 16, you get a page with a description of different projects that OpenSUSE is working on and tips on how to participate for developers and non-developers alike. If OpenSUSE Leap wants to be a free version of SLE like an analog of CentOS for Redhat, then that's fine. If it wants to be more, and I hope it does, then it needs to say that especially when it advertises itself.

Opensuse is excellent but doesn't seem to have the same hardcore evangelists that other distros have. Perhaps it is a hacker culture that is more focused on just doing things rather than marketing? Opensuse definitely doesn't get the credit it deserves.

reddit.com › r/opensuse › how long have you been using opensuse for?

r/openSUSE on Reddit: How long have you been using OpenSUSE for?

April 4, 2023 -

As the title suggests, how long have you been using OpenSUSE for and what bought you to use it over other Linux distributions? Recently there were some discussions over at r/archlinux and r/Fedora discussing this topic so I thought it would be interesting to get some insight from this community as to why you have stuck with openSUSE over the other alternatives.

I'm not an OpenSUSE user myself, but I've considered switching to Tumbleweed after experiencing issues with Arch/Fedora. OpenSUSE seems to tick all the right boxes and envisions what you'd expect from a highly capable, well thought out and brilliantly engineered distribution from my initial impressions.

So what was the selling point for you that made you stay with OpenSUSE, and could you give some reasons why YOU think anyone should use it over something like Arch or Fedora?

Thank you

Since 2005 with version 10. Why openSUSE over other distros?

(1) YaST. YaST is their system administration tool which is unique in the Linux world. It's a purely graphical interface where everything a new user would need is in one location. User creation, network config, partitioning, etc. is on one screen.

(2) Desktop environments. Unlike many other Linux distros, openSUSE actively supports multiple DEs in the same distro. You can try KDE, Gnome, MATE, Xfce, etc. without having to boot into another distro to try a different DE. There's no compiling or funky procedures to get another desktop environment to work.

(3) openSUSE Leap is very stable and mirrors SUSE's Enterprise Linux used by corporate clients, so there's excellent documentation and updates won't break the system. openSUSE is also one of the oldest and most mature distros out there.

Since 2015 or 2016, not sure exactly, always on tumbleweed.

I stuck to it because it just works and I can change stuff without reading hundreds of options on a man page thanks to Yast. I know some people despise yast, but it is so much easier to go there, click a bunch of stuff and apply than having to remember which file under which directory and what to type in to make the desired change.

Snapper also saved me a couple of times.

reddit.com › r/linuxquestions › why aren't more people talking about/recommending opensuse?

r/linuxquestions on Reddit: Why aren't more people talking about/recommending openSUSE?

November 14, 2020 -

Serious question here.

The last time I looked at openSUSE was two or three years ago. I had some meh experiences with some repos and just gave up after a day. I never gave it another go as it just doesn't come up all that often when talking about distros on reddit or frankly anywhere.

I've now got a Project at work to upgrade a SLES Cluster and though i could prepare by putting openSUSE on my spare SSD. And to my surprise, it is way better than most other distros i tried so far.

Everyone is takling about how easy Manjaro makes it with all their Tools especially for Kernel and driver stuff. openSUSE blew me away by how easy and flawless YAST installed Nvidia drivers. Only beaten by PopOS which has the drivers out of the box.

I'm running tumbleweed atm. Plasma is probably the smoothes experience i've had with KDE in a LONG time. As up to date as Arch, no hiccups, no major theming like Manjaro does and overall, just a working stock Plasma install with no fuss.

Then i thought "maybe its a corporate thing", but no. The Repos contain everything you need for gaming. Steam, Lutris, Discord. All there. LoL on Lutris was even more straight forward than popOS.

Then i had that typical "but AUR" argument. Signal Desktop wasn't in the repos and Signal only provides deb packages. I thought i was screwed. But nope. software.opensuse.org even has user provided packages with a great website and an actuall 1-click install that works without any addons or plugins. All without needing the terminal or a AUR manager or such.

Finally, they install BtrFS by default and have Snapshots set up for anything you do without the User having to configure it (might be a BtrFS thing, i never tried that as no other Distro defaults to it). Great.

So yeah, it's only been a couple of hours, and at the risk of rose tinted glasses (stuff could still go south): Why isn't openSUSE recommended more? It feels like the best of most worlds. Great installer, Awesome default setup, close to as current as Arch with an AUR "clone", and even better tools then the Manjaro stuff (imho). Why aren't we as a linux community recommending it more to newcomers or as a "try that for something new" for distrohoppers?

The only reason I don't prefer it to arch and arch based distros is because OBS is not as easy and quick as AUR. AUR helpers may not be officially supported, but tools like pamac really make software management a breeze

Why aren't we as a linux community recommending it more to newcomers or as a "try that for something new" for distrohoppers? Probably for the same reason Debian doesn’t get much love. As you said, it installs a vanilla KDE with none of the theming and stuff the more beginner oriented distros like Manjaro and Pop provide. For Debian, the excuse I always hear is that it’s hard, but really, it’s not. You can pretty much click next next next through the installer and the only things you have to do is select a target disk and add a username/password. Tim’s been well more than a decade since I had to do anything special to get hardware working - even my brand new Ryzen system on a new x570 board. The exception is nvidia drivers. I don’t know if there’s a GUI way but I’ve always just downloaded and ran the package and it just works. No it’s not hard. It’s just a bit bland. OpenSUSE may have another historic deficit. Way back when it was just “SuSE” (became “SUSE” after the Novel acquisition), it wasn’t free. Even the desktop version was like RHEL - you could download the sources but to get the install CDs you needed to buy the box or know someone who could make you a copy. The box was a thing of beauty. SuSE 8 (or was it 7) came on 9 CDs providing you with a software repository that came close to rivalling Debian. Also in the box was a printed manual about an inch thick - probably the most thorough and comprehensive Linux manual I have ever seen, and definitely the one I learned the most from. But because it wasn’t as easy to come by, SuSE just wasn’t as popular. Another problem. SuSE back then was one of few distros that not only came with all the major file systems, but allowed you to install to whatever you chose. Ext2 (I don’t think ext3 was around yet), XFS, JFS, Reiserfs, and a few more. The default was Reiserfs 3, a filesystem that was designed by then SuSE employee, Hans Reiser. For comparison, Red Hat (the desktop OS, now called Fedora) came with ext2 only. Reiser was the fastest of the lot, by a long stretch, and it was the only journaled filesystem available in a consumer distro. Ext3, in case you’re wondering, is just ext2 + a journal. Around the time of the transition to OpenSUSE, Hans Reiser was working on Reiserfs 4. Early builds wiped the floor with everything else and didn’t eat your data like btrfs. It was gaining popularity outside of the SUSE ecosystem and for a while it looked like other distros were considering moving to it. But then Hans Reiser’s wife went missing, and after some time he became the prime suspect. He ended up being convicted of her murder (although no body was ever found). With the lead developer behind bars, development stopped and frankly, no one wanted to touch it. SUSE itself suffered some reputations damage and a lot of users migrated away. This was also the time when Ubuntu became a serious offering, so people had something decent to move to. I don’t think SUSE ever overcame it, and the move to OpenSUSE was largely a last ditch effort to save to desktop distro. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) was a very serious and comprehensive server offering that made RHEL look like an also-ran. We used it at my employer at the time and I absolutely loved it. I moved to a RHEL shop since and haven’t had the pleasure of using SLES again, but I believe it’s still great. Reiserfs 3.6 is still in Debian and Ubuntu. I don’t remember seeing it as an install option but you can use it on secondary volumes.