SUSE News Archives

As we've been covering since the original patches back in October, SUSE has been working on a very interesting in-kernel bootsplash system. It's growing into an interesting alternative to the user-space-based Plymouth, but one of the leading common criticism of it is the use of FBCON rather than interfacing with the DRM/KMS APIs.

Back in October I wrote about SUSE working on a new, in-kernel bootsplash project. That work has yet to be mainlined but it looks like it's still on track for going upstream in the future with the latest version now being released that addresses issues uncovered during review.

For those that may enjoy the rolling-release nature of openSUSE Tumbleweed but want to be a bit more conservative with the updates, Tumbleweed now supports the concept of snapshots.

The first public beta of SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 is now available for their Enterprise Server, Enterprise Desktop, Enterprise Workstation Extension, and Enterprise High Availability products.

While Plymouth has become widely-used as a bootsplash screen on most Linux systems these days and is much better off than the RHGB days, SUSE has sent out initial patches as part of their proposal for having a new in-kernel bootsplash system.

Veteran GCC contributor and SUSE developer Jan Hubicka has begun working on some Zen tuning within the GNU Compiler Collection for benefiting the Ryzen / Threadripper / Epyc processors.

With the Power Use, RAM + Boot Times With Unity, Xfce, GNOME, LXDE, Budgie and KDE Plasma tests this week, many expressed frustration over the heavy KDE packaging on Ubuntu leading to the inflated results for the Plasma 5 desktop tests. For some additional reference, here is how KDE Plasma (and GNOME Shell) compare when running on Ubuntu 17.04 vs. openSUSE Tumbleweed.

While Red Hat is backing away from Btrfs support in favor of their next-gen Stratis project and mature Linux file-systems like EXT4 and XFS, SUSE is reaffirming their support for Btrfs.

Those running openSUSE's Tumbleweed rolling-release Linux distribution now have an easier means of maintaining the NVIDIA binary driver on the system.

The openSUSE Leap 42.3 release is now available, the build based off SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP3.

OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 has the finish line in sight and it's scheduled to cross that line by the last week of July. Here's a look at the new features.

Remember that "openSUSE Tablet" last year that was seeking crowd-funding and even advertised by the openSUSE crew for being a Linux tablet as cheap as $200 USD? Sadly, it's not a reality while the company still appears to be formulating something.

OpenSUSE's Tumbleweed rolling-release distribution continues picking up new functionality in a very punctual manner.

The rolling-release openSUSE Tumbleweed distribution is now building its packages with PIE (Position Independent Executables) as the default.

Ahead of the planned openSUSE Leap 42.3 release at the end of July is what's being released soon as a release candidate.

openSUSE's Tumbleweed rolling-release Linux distribution has now switched over to using GCC7 as its default code compiler.

The openSUSE project has announced "Kubic" as a new initiative around making their Linux operating system more container-friendly.

The openSUSE Conference 2017 kicked off yesterday in the beautiful Nürnberg, Bavaria. The event runs through Sunday but if you are sadly missing out on the event, there are video live streams and recordings available.

For those using the openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling-release distribution but haven't upgraded in a while, many new/updated packages are now available.

What comes after openSUSE Leap 42.3 for SUSE's community non-rolling distribution? Version 15.

While the AMDGPU "GCN" compiler support in LLVM is quite mature now, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) hasn't yet received a full-fledged GCN compiler back-end for AMD GPUs. SUSE developers have been working on that for AMD and today they have published their code branch. This GCN back-end for GCC is primarily focused on compute capabilities rather than compiling graphics shaders.

Ubuntu dropped their official alpha/betas long ago, Fedora 27 is dropping their alphas, and openSUSE is also shifting their development approach and will get rid of alpha and beta releases. OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 will be developed in a "rolling" manner although the release will not be a rolling-release post-release, unlike openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Adoption of the Linux 4.10 kernel going strong with not only Ubuntu Zesty and Intel's Clear Linux already having pulled it in, among other rolling releases, but openSUSE Tumbleweed is also now too riding off Linux 4.10.1.

OpenSUSE's Tumbleweed rolling-release distribution continues rolling forward with new package updates and other features.

With the Talos Secure Workstation not set to hit its goal, I was curious this morning about how the MJ Technology's openSUSE-powered "First True Linux x86 and x64 Tablet" was doing, but that too has failed to materialize.

SUSE's YaST Team has shared the improvements they've been working on this holiday season for improving the distribution's installer / setup tool.

With openSUSE Leap 42.2 having been released back toward the middle of December as the successor to Leap 42.2, Leap 42.3 has now entered development.

Bruno Friedmann has announced the end to AMD proprietary driver fglrx support in openSUSE while also announcing they don't plan to support the hybrid proprietary AMDGPU-PRO stack either.

Following SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as being available in a 64-bit edition catered to the Raspberry Pi 3, openSUSE developers have now released a 64-bit image of Leap 42.2 for the RPi3.

I've been running some fresh benchmarks of the recently released openSUSE Leap 42.2 compared to the rolling-release openSUSE Tumbleweed and friends. Those benchmarks will be posted shortly, but after using the Nouveau experience on Tumbleweed I found the need to comment.

Hitting the web this morning is the official release of openSUSE Leap 42.2.

Those rolling on openSUSE Tumbleweed can run the latest package updates to switch from Mesa 12 to the recently-released Mesa 13.

SUSECon is happening this week and timed with this event is the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 2.

The second and final release candidate of openSUSE 42.2 Leap is now available for last-minute testing ahead of the official Linux distribution release later this month.

There is less than one month to go until openSUSE Leap 42.2 will be officially released while today marks the RC1 availability.

There are a number of exciting package updates for the openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling-release Linux distribution.

Just one day after KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS was released, openSUSE Leap 42.2 Beta 3 is shipping and uses this new KDE desktop update by default.

The second beta of the upcoming openSUSE 42.2 Linux distribution is now available. One notable change is that 42.2 has switched to the KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS beta.

For those using openSUSE Leap rather than the Tumbleweed rolling-release flavor, the Leap 42.2 Beta 1 release is now available for your testing pleasure.

Ludwig Nussel has announced the release today of the third alpha release for the forthcoming openSUSE "Leap" 42.2 update.

There are more updates in the openSUSE land for both rolling-release Tumbleweed users as well as preparations for the 42.2 Leap update due out in November.

From 22 to 26 June, the openSUSE Conference has been taking place in Nürnberg. There's been live video streams for those not in Bavaria while now the video recordings are being uploaded for your enjoyment at your convenience.

OpenSUSE's Tumbleweed rolling-release distribution will soon join the likes of Fedora 24 and Clear Linux as being an early adopter of the new GCC 6.

The first alpha release for openSUSE 42.2 Leap is now available.

While KDE Neon was recently announced as an effort providing bleeding-edge KDE packages for Ubuntu, openSUSE developers have launched Krypton and Argon as their own similar initiatives.

For users of the rolling-release openSUSE Tumbleweed distribution, there has been a major rework of YaST taking place.

Last year SUSE announced KGraft as a new form of live Linux kernel patching to reduce downtime by avoiding reboots when applying kernel security updates, etc. The initial combined infrastructure work of kGraft and Red Hat's Kpatch was merged in Linux 4.0. Here's how SUSE is showing off their live kernel patching method.

The release of openSUSE 42.1 Leap is now available, which they call the "first hybrid distribution" and is comprised of sources from SUSE Linux Enterprise.

Back in September I posted Fedora vs. openSUSE vs. Manjaro vs. Debian vs. Ubuntu vs. Mint Linux Benchmarks. Of that six-way Linux distribution comparison, several Phoronix readers complained that I was somehow anti-openSUSE or that testing out-of-the-box distribution performance isn't right, since openSUSE 42.1 Leap tended to lose the most in that testing. Well, thanks to those tests, the out-of-the-box performance for openSUSE 42.1 is now going to be better.

The rolling-release openSUSE Tumblewed distribution has landed a number of significant KDE package updates.