Installing Linux openSUSE. Goodbye Windows or OpenSUSE deep customization

In this note, I will jot down a reminder for myself (and you) on finishing the newly installed OpenSUSE 13.2. We will be talking about a 64-bit system with the KDE desktop. This will be a cross between “XX things to do after installing...” and some general thoughts out loud.

0.1. Why the KDE version?

4. If you have Windows on an adjacent partition...

It is useful to mount an NTFS partition with the ability to write to it. To do this, go to the distribution in Yast Marking and assign a mount point to the NTFS partition. There in the dialog you can add your own mounting options.

Add uid=username there, indicating your login instead of username.

It's a matter of everyone's taste. Personally, I make myself Open Sans or Droid Sans, 9 Pt with weak clarification everywhere. How can I do the same setup for Yast and other applications running as root? In the console we type:

and customize the fonts as needed. Additionally, there is also a customizer qtconfig It’s useful to set the desired font in it too.

6. Cloud file storage and synchronization

Let's consider the 3 most advanced options: Dropbox, MegaSync, Yandex Disk.

What features do you need to know about them?

It offers a small amount of free space (2.2 GB), but is very popular and is available on all platforms, and a new client based on Qt5 was recently released for Linux. Let's install it:

IN home folder press F4 and enter the command:

Press Alt+. and we see the hidden folder .dropbox-dist, inside of which is the dropboxd executable file. When you launch it, the Dropbox icon will appear in the system tray and the authorization and client settings dialog will start. A link to that file can be added to KDE startup for convenience.

Dropbox can integrate with Dolphin, but here you need to be aware of one nuance. There is an old extension for Dolphin (servicemenu action), which generates links to shared files in the Public folder that no longer work. Therefore, it is important to install a working add-on.

You will have two new menu items in Dolphin that will allow you to view the file in a web browser on the Dropbox page (from where you can create a public link) and view the versions of the file there. There is also a wonderful utility for working with Dropbox from the console, which can be used in conjunction with Dolphin. To do this, you need to manually create a service menu (I have a plan to write about this later in a separate post).

Megasync

This is a cloud service from distant New Zealand. He is very distinguished high speed work (downloading and uploading is really faster than on Yandex) and a generous free 50 GB for storing files.

Not long ago the official client for Linux was released, here it is. Megasync doesn't have Dolphin integration, but the client interface allows you to create and copy public links to recently downloaded files. Very comfortably.

Yandex disk

To be honest, I don’t really like this service, because the Linux version of the Poison client is strange (it crashes from time to time for no reason), but for Poison there is an excellent service menu for Dolphin. I note that among various services, this is the most successful integration with Dolphin. The client itself can be installed from this RPM package, ignoring the complaint about missing dependencies (rpm -ivh —nodeps —force *.rpm). Interestingly, for POISON there is no normal indicator for the system tray. Instead, you can manually view the synchronization status by entering the yandex-disk status command. For clarity, it can be placed in this plasmoid. Of course, before this you need to configure the client to work with your account in YaD, read about it.

7. Watch a movie directly from a torrent

A great feature, originally described for Ubuntu on Webupd8.org, but works great on other distributions as well. We enter the following commands sequentially:

sudo zypper in vlc vlc-codecs vlc-qt nodejs sudo npm install -g peerflix wget https://raw.github.com/hotice/webupd8/master/Torrent-Video-Player -O /tmp/Torrent-Video-Player sudo install /tmp/Torrent-Video-Player /usr/local/bin/

After that, we go to our favorite tracker and download .torrent, but open it not in a regular client (Transmission/KTorrent), but in /usr/local/bin/Torrent-Video-Player. Profit!

If the movie in the torrent is of a reasonable size, the torrent itself is distributed by a sufficient number of seeders, and you have a thick Internet channel, then comfortable viewing is guaranteed.

8. Run Android applications directly on Linux

How is this possible? Yes, very simple! For Chrome browsers and Chromium there is a wonderful extension called Archon, which is a runtime environment for Android programs.
Catch:
http://archon-runtime.github.io
Download the archive from there for your architecture and bit depth, unpack it - you should get a folder with a name like vladikoff-archon-44bc9ba24037.
Launch the browser, go to Settings > Extensions, check the box Developer Mode, press the button Load unpacked extension... and select that same folder. That's it, now your browser is able to run programs originally created for Android.
But where can I get them? From the catalog Google Play, of course!
Here you will need to tinker a little more. The order is:
1. Find a link to the application we are interested in on Google Play
2. Download the APK of this application (catch the valuable link: http://apps.evozi.com)
3. Convert the APK to a Chrome extension.

The last point needs clarification. To convert, you will need the chromeos-apk utility, which was created by the same person as Archon. The utility is a module (package) for the Node.js web server, which we have already installed above. Therefore, we are left with:
— install the chromeos-apk module (npm install chromeos-apk -g)
— convert APK (chromeos-apk /path/to/application.apk)

As a result, you will get a folder with an unpacked extension, which must be installed in the browser using the method described above. The extension will have a link next to it Launch, which will launch the application.
Enjoy!

9. Fixing the PackageKit error, due to which Apper installs RPM files only the second time (). The first time the following strange message is displayed:

The error is not critical, but still annoying. To fix it, connect the following repository.

;
3. Revision after installation (You are reading this section).

Before using the package manager to install various things I need (zypper), I like to configure it a little. By default, zypper is not very optimally configured, because... installs many packages that are not directly installed or their dependencies, and also checks repository metadata for updates too often (with each call, if 10 minutes have passed since the previous check).

This last option may give the user the impression that the package manager is too slow. To fix this, you need to specify a different period of time in minutes in the /etc/zypp/zypp.conf file in the value for the “repo.refresh.delay” parameter, after which zypper will check the metadata when called (in my opinion, this value is better set equal to 2880 minutes, i.e. two days). To solve the problem of unnecessary package installations, you will have to refer to another file - /etc/zypp/zypper.conf - and replace the value of the “installRecommends” parameter in it with “no”.

It should also be said about the security system that openSUSE provides to the user. I can only say that it is as reliable as pipeline shut-off valves (http://www.rosaquatoria.ru/)!

Now about multimedia packages and other proprietary software. Despite the fact that this is already the second release of openSUSE, how mp3 files are played out of the box, there are still many codecs left behind that are not included in the distribution and require manual installation. The easiest way to solve this problem is described in http page:// opensuse-community.org/Restricted formats/12.3 (required packages for installation are the same as in openSUSE 12.2).

Installing a driver for a video adapter is also not difficult, although it is not implemented as conveniently as in Ubuntu: you need to know exactly what video card is installed and have a basic understanding of NVIDIA products (for example, know that the GeForce 6600 GT is lower than the GeForce GTX 660, and not the other way around). Here I noticed another minor flaw: in the Google browser Chrome files with the ymp extension (used for one-click installation) are opened as text by default instead of being saved. I installed my driver “out of habit” - with the command “zypper install x11-video-nvidiaG03”. And everything would be fine, but an annoying problem arose when playing any more or less serious graphics (and I’m not the only one, https://bugzilla.novell.com/show bug.cgi?id=808319). For example, more than half of the KDE effects did not work, and the game Team Fortress 2 produced the error “Could not find required OpenGL entry point "glColorMaskIndexedEXT"!” If I had used GNOME, the situation would have only become more complicated: judging by the reviews, when launching this environment, I should have seen only a black screen. The cause of the problem turned out to be trivial: the system user was not included in the video group. And this is not the fault of the driver maintainers - it’s just that YaST in openSUSE 12.3, when creating a user, does not add it to any groups other than the main one (users).

Other proprietary software such as Skype, VirtualBox, Google Chrome/Talk Plugin and Steam installed without any problems or incidents. And other system settings were either quite specific (for example, vdpau in UMPlayer) or cosmetic in nature.

Conclusion

openSUSE 12.3 gives the impression of being the complete opposite of the previous release (for a review of openSUSE 12.2, see “Open Source” No. 115 of September 20, 2012). This time, the user can expect many positive changes that should attract attention to the release and motivate it to install it (or upgrade from previous versions). However, Dartmouth, which was released on schedule, suffered from problems that were mostly known before release and that require manual modification after installation. Because of them, version 12.3 may be remembered as “buggy”.

In my review of openSUSE 12.2, I mentioned a dilemma that the developers had and two methods to solve it. The openSUSE authors were wondering what the best course of action would be: release 12.2 on schedule with major problems, or delay it while it needed additional development and testing. 12.2 went according to the second scenario, but the conclusion regarding 12.3 suggests itself - it would be better if this release was “delayed”. With such a development of the plot, version 12.3 would have turned out almost perfect.

However, the release has already taken place... After carrying out the above-described “corrective work”, I am satisfied with the system: it suits me and continues to work as it should, but I have no desire to recommend that others try it - only for enthusiasts and experienced users.

Linux openSUSE- one of the most popular distributions in the world. Created and developed by SUSE (now owned by Novell), over the many years of its existence it has gained fame as a user-friendly and high-quality product, entering the list of the most frequently installed Linux distributions. Its distinctive features are:

High-quality integration of all components: you can easily transfer data between different programs, as well as exchange them with other users (also working in Windows).
Thoughtful user interface: The desktop is based on the intuitive KDE and GNOME environments, which is especially convenient for those people who are new to .
Easy system setup: you can quickly and easily connect to the Internet, local network, use a variety of peripherals.
Another distinctive feature of openSUSE is YaST, a system configuration utility. It is quite functional and helps with minimal effort to very quickly configure the system or some of its services, without having to necessary knowledge in the desired area.

Installing Linux openSUSE:

Stage 1.

The first step when installing Linux openSUSE is to download the installation disk image, after which you should burn it to a DVD. Let's assume that the image was successfully downloaded and burned without any errors. We insert the disc into the drive, and then reboot (the DVD drive should be the default boot device). Next, after the welcome screen, in which we will be told “Welcome” in various languages, a menu will appear where we will need to select the next steps. You can start the installation immediately by clicking on “Installation”. But before that, it is advisable to press F2 to select native language(in our case it is “Russian”). This is done for further convenience. In addition, by pressing F3, you can also select the required screen resolution, and by pressing F4, select the media from which the installation will be carried out (if the installation is performed from a network, you can configure this network here). You can read about everything else in this menu in the help, which is called up by F1.

Stage 2.

The language is selected, everything else should be left as default and click “Install”. We wait a few seconds for loading Linux kernels, after which it will start graphical shell installer. Next, a license agreement will appear with two lists in which you can select required language and keyboard layout, but we have already selected the language earlier, so we will see it.

Stage 3.

We read (optional) the license agreement, and then click “Next”. The installer will analyze your system and offer a “new installation” or “update already existing system» to choose from. Since we didn’t have openSUSE before, the choice becomes obvious. Click “Next” again. On next step the time zone is selected. Simply click on any nearby major city on the map that appears, or select a time zone and region from the corresponding lists. At this point you can also change the time and system date. However, this can be done later. We confirm our choice by clicking on the “Next” button.

Stage 4.

The next step is to select the “desktop environment”. In version 11.3 we are offered a choice: KDE 4.4.4 (installed by default); LXDE, GNOME 2.30; XFCE; X Window, " text mode" Everyone can decide for themselves what to choose based on their own interests. After that, click “Next”.

Stage 5.

The next step may well be quite difficult for some users. Partitions are created on it. Before you do anything, you should acquire some knowledge about the Linux file system. To the extent possible, the article will provide the necessary explanations.

Some users may not be satisfied with the default partition configuration (if you are happy with everything, click “next”), so select “Create partitioning”, then put a dot next to “Custom partitioning” and click “Next”. On the left side in the section " hard disks» select hda or sda disk depending on your hardware.

Before you start partitioning the disk, you should think a little and try to decide what we ultimately need to get.

We have one HDD (sda) with a size of 40 GB, on which there is one partition (sda1) occupied by the Windows system.
We free up space for Linux, click on sda1 in the list on the right and click on the “resize” button, then specify new size in 15 Gb and confirm.

Stage 6.

On at this stage partitions should be partitioned for Linux. To do this, create the sda2 section, click on the “add” button and indicate that it will be the main one. Its size will be 8 Gb, select the file system Reiser, mount point “/”. We do not touch all other settings. The remaining sections are created in a similar way, as shown in the screenshot:

Here:
“/USR” - components and programs will be installed here. It is recommended to allocate 6-10Gb for this partition, but you can allocate by at will and more.
"SWAP" - swap partition. It is recommended to set twice the amount of RAM. If you have two hard drives, it is recommended to create one SWAP partition equal to RAM on each. If the amount of RAM is large, then SWAP may well not be created at all.
“/VAR” - logs, etc. As a rule, 1Gb is enough.
"/TMP" - temporary files OS. 1Gb is enough. It is not recommended to place important documents in this section as it may be cleared automatically.
"/HOME" - user documents and files, something similar to "documents and settings" in Windows.
"/" - all the rest. In our example, we created an 8Gb partition. However, if you are going to install WEB, FTP or any other server, you need to think again about the amount of disk space of the partition mounted in “/”.

Extended - extended section. One of the first 4 partitions must be extended if it is planned to create more than four partitions on the disk in the future. All sections numbered 5 and higher are created inside the extended one.

You can also select additional sections in which download files from the Internet and much more can be stored.

Regarding file systems:
“EXT4” - for sections with documents.
"Reiser" - for sections with big amount small files.
"XFS" - for partitions with large files.

It is quite possible to limit yourself to creating: “/home”, “/”, and “SWAP” as necessary, and then format everything in EXT4. However, the choice is always yours.

After creating the markup, click on the “Accept” button and then “Next”.

Stage 7.

At the next stage, we create a user. We just fill out the standard form: Login, Password, Name and so on. We confirm our choice again by clicking on the “Next” button. If the “use this password for the system administrator” checkbox is unchecked, you will have to come up with a different password for him (it is recommended to do so).

Stage 8.

Next, we will see a list of what we managed to select during installation. Any item can now be changed by clicking on the appropriate link. Therefore, if you remember that you forgot something, you can still correct it. In addition, you can now change the list of installed software so if you need WEB server, or you don't need games, or you want to choose a specific player, now is the time to do it. It's worth noting that if you click the "Install" button now, this will all take effect, so you have one last chance to change your mind. Also pay attention to the “Download” item. If you already have the system installed, this item should appear there. You should also check that the bootloader is installed on the partition selected for “/” (in our case “sda2”). When everything has been completely checked, click “Install” and begin to observe the installation process, at the end of which we will see the authorization form.

Enter your username and password (you should not enter “root” as a user), press “Enter”, after which you get to the desktop. Now openSUSE OS is installed, all you need to do is customize it.

Linux openSUSE is an excellent operating system for those users who are not going to limit their computer and themselves in capabilities. This operating system is fast, convenient, and very easy to learn. It can be ideal for both ardent Linux followers and those who are encountering it for the first time.

However, some problems may arise during operation. For example, APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller), which is a very common problem on Linux. During boot, the system may simply freeze. Also, the system does not integrate drivers for Nvidia video cards, which is very inconvenient. In addition, problems with standby and sleep modes are possible. On some computers they don't work at all. There may also be problems connecting to a laptop. external monitor. Every time the system boots, the resolution is reset to 800x600.

Well, that was the warm-up, now the serious initial work begins OpenSUSE setup after installation.

OpenSUSE has one interesting nuance. The official repositories contain only programs with free licenses. But very often we need other programs with a closed license, and first of all these are codecs.

The community has created a Packman repository where these packages are available for installation. Available there various applications, and full versions multimedia libraries. The Packman repository is divided into four categories:

Essentials- contains codecs for audio and video, as well as additional applications.
Multimedia- contains multimedia applications
Extra- additional applications not related to multimedia
Games- Games.

The Pacman repository can be added with the command:

$ sudo zypper ar -f -n packman http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Leap_42.1/ packman

But there is an easier way and you will still have to open the YaST configuration manager. So forget about the team. Open Yast from the main menu:

Go to Software repositories:

Click the add button and select Community repositories:

Here, check the boxes for all the repositories that you need to add Pacman, libdvdcss, you can also check the repository with your video card drivers, then click Further:

The process of adding repositories will go quite quickly, then return to the main menu and open Software management, and here is the tab Repositories:

Select the Pacman repository and click on the link: Switch system packages to versions from this repository.

Important: If the last step is not done, the codecs will not be fully installed and will not work correctly.

All you have to do is click the apply button and wait for the packages to be reinstalled.

Installing Opensuse codecs

If you did everything as written in the previous paragraph, this command will install OpenSUSE 42.1 codecs for all occasions. Here you can install both the full range of audio and video codecs necessary for the operation of many programs, but also DVD codecs:

$ sudo zypper in gstreamer-0_10 gstreamer-0_10-plugins-ffmpeg gstreamer-0_10-plugins-base gstreamer-0_10-plugins-bad gstreamer-0_10-plugins-bad-orig-addon gstreamer-0_10-plugins-good gstreamer-0_10- plugins-good-extra gstreamer-0_10-plugins-ugly gstreamer-0_10-plugins-ugly-orig-addon faad2 libfaad2 a52dec x264_tMod lame twolame libxine2-codecs ffmpeg w32codec-all libavcodec52 libavcodec55 MPlayer faac libmpg123-0 libquicktime0 libxvidcore4 0 libmad0-32bit libmpeg2 -0 libmac2 mpeg2dec xvidcore libdcaenc0 dirac libdirac_encoder0 libdirac_decoder0 gstreamer gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-base gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-ugly-orig-addon gstreamer-plugins-bad-orig-addon gstreamer- plugins-libav gstreamer-plugins-good-extra libdvdread3 libdvdplay0 libdvdnav4 libdvdcss2 libavdevice52 libavdevice55 libavfilter1 libavfilter4 libavformat52 libavresample1 libavutil50 libavutil52 libmatroska6 libx264-142 libx264-142-32bit libvpx1 libs wfdec0_9_2 libx265-32 x265 libvo-aacenc0 libx265-32-32bit

After running the command you will have all the necessary codecs.

Installing Flash Player

Default Flash Player not available in OpenSUSE repositories. Despite the fact that Flash technology is becoming a thing of the past, Flash inserts are still very often found on sites in the form of Flash players that have not had time to move to HTML5. To install Flash, run the following commands:

Add a repository for a 64-bit system:

Or for 32 bit system

$ sudo rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

Import the key:

$ sudo rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-adobe-linux

Install Falsh Plugin:

$ sudo zypper install flash-plugin

Installing Java

The Java environment is used to run some applications on OpenSUSE, and on Linux in general. It can be installed using the following command:

$ sudo zypper in java-1_8_0-openjdk

Optimization and Acceleration of the openSUSE system

You have installed your openSUSE distribution, but this is not enough. You have configured all the functions, decorated the system, and suddenly you are faced with the fact that your system begins to take a long time to load and “think” slowly. It's time to start another important part of setting up the distribution - system optimization.

To start: First, let's remove unused terminals. I'm sure in everyday life you rarely use more than 2 terminals, and if you need more, then you need the screen tool.. Find the following lines in /etc/inittab and comment them out with #.

3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

Second: One of the most important optimization features not only in openSUSE, but also in any other Linux distribution is disabling unnecessary services. In SuSE this can be easily disabled via YaST. To do this, launch YaST, click on System -> System Services (Runlevel). If you do not have this component installed, you can do it with the following command:

Sudo zipper in yast2-runlevel

A list of some services is located. (These services are given with descriptions)

Third: This step will help you increase the RAM usage efficiency of your computer. Disabling unnecessary processes will give extra bed in RAM without sending data to swap.
Important: These changes are for machines with small quantities RAM memory, but not for machines with more than 1 GB of RAM.

First, check what your current swap(swappiness) usage level is. The maximum value (100) means that your processor will use swap more often. You can view swappiness with the following command

Cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

In openSUSE the default swappiness is 60 (in different distributions it varies between 50-60)

Now test the settings before making them permanent. Run:

Sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=0

If you feel the system is speeding up and everything is fine, then you can set this value permanently by writing it in /etc/sysctl.conf. Edit this file in your favorite text editor:

Sudo mcedit /etc/sysctl.conf

Add the following line to the end /etc/sysctl.conf:

Vm.swappiness = 5

(The note: The lower the swappiness value, the less the kernel will use swap).

Fourth: Disable IPv6 if you are not using this. This can be done via YaST, go to Network Devices-> Network settings

Fifth: Customize your applications
OpenOffice.org will allow you to change its memory usage. You can do this by opening any OpenOffice.org application, go to Tools -> Options -> OpenOffice.org ->> Memory. You can change this setting to suit your needs, but changing the amount of graphics in the cache and increasing the sum of all objects in the cache can be quite useful.

Compiz Most people consider it a "toy". If you really need it, use fine tuning plugins. Include only what you really need! If you don't need it, just disable Compiz desktop effects. This will free up a considerable amount of resources.

Sixth: Replacement of "heavy" applications
Firefox should not be used on weak machines because it consumes a large number of memory. Use opera instead. You can install it with the following command

Sudo zipper in opera

Opera is a very good, usable browser and consumes much less system resources than Firefox. If you're using KDE, you can also use Konqueror, but again, Opera is the best option.
OpenOffice.org There are many for Linux text editors. If you only need standard kwrite/gedit or if you can use simpler editors than openoffice, such as abiword or koffice, then please be sure to make a replacement.

For particularly weak machines, you can change your desktop environment. Most people use GNOME or KDE for this. When running, they consume quite a lot of resources and you can replace them with lightweight desktop managers such as XFCE (blackbox, enlightenment, icewm (this is for more advanced users)). XFCE can be easily installed via YaST -> Software -> Software Management. Select Filter -> Templates and check the XFCE desktop environment checkbox.

These simple things can significantly improve your machine's performance and speed up the boot process.

Well, in addition, a few more measures to improve performance:

Run:

Ps-ef | more

Check what is running, but is completely unnecessary for you. Kill unnecessary processes. Save your session when exiting coda and these processes will not reappear (you won’t have to worry about them anymore)

Other Speed Up You Can Do by Improving Performance file system EXT3, adding parameters:

Noatime,nodiratime

In /etc/fstab for mount point /home. This is what it looks like in fstab:

/dev/system/home /home ext3 acl,user_xattr,noatime,nodiratime 1 2

And finally, use vanilla core. Unfortunately, this will remove all patches installed by the SuSE developers, but will increase loading times by 10-15%. Please do this only if you are an "advanced" user; beginners should not change their kernel yet.

Be sure to remember to remove Beagle and AppArmor. Beagle scans the system every day adding search files to its database. Most users simply don't need AppArmor.

Addition
On the advice of one smart person, I’m adding here how you can optimize temporary folders (/tmp,/var/tmp,/var/lock). Attention! This setting will be mainly useful to owners of modern laptops with Linux on board; you should not use it if the RAM size on your machine is less than 512 MB. Typically, laptops are now equipped with SATA hard drives 5400 rpm. Therefore, the recording speed is quite slow. And the RAM in laptops is now on average 1-2 GB. And to actually speed up the system, it is proposed to transfer temporary folders to RAM using tmpfs. For this purpose in /etc/fstab you need to enter the following lines:

Tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0 tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0 tmpfs /var/lock tmpfs defaults 0 0

Friends, colleagues, like-minded people!

After approximately 9 months from the release date of the previous version, the third edition of the release was released popular Linux distribution openSUSE Leap 42 series. So, let's meet - openSUSE Leap 42.3.

openSUSE distribution Leap, unlike openSUSE Tumbleweed(rolling-release, a constantly updated distribution in the style of Arch Linux), released periodically and regularly, recommended for beginners and experienced users Linux developers, administrators and software providers, as the end result is a user-friendly and usable distribution and a stable operating system.

The latest release of openSUSE Leap 42.3 offers a variety of graphical desktops to choose from: KDE and GNOME, as well as MATE, Xfce, Enlightenment and Cinnamon. Graphical environment LXQt is also present, but not available in the installer.

OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 features KDE's long-term release of its flagship Plasma desktop software. Plasma 5.8 LTS is the default desktop environment in openSUSE and comes with rich, even more stable performance. New Plasma 5.8.7 adds three months of work for new translations and corrections.

GNOME 3.20

This is another version of the desktop that remains the same in openSUSE Leap 42.3. Its resilience provides privacy controls to improve location access on a per-app basis. fast access access media controls directly from the shell, and keyboard shortcuts and gestures can be easily learned using new shortcut overlay windows. Many GNOME applications "hot" windows for 3.20, including files, videos, photos, gedit, Builder, Maps and more. In each application, the shortcut window can be opened from the application menu or by using the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl + /" or "Ctrl + F1". GNOME can access Google Drive directly from Files applications in openSUSE Leap 42.3."

OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 downloads can be found on the official website. Users running openSUSE Leap 42.2 can upgrade to openSUSE Leap 42.3 using the upgrade instructions. It is recommended to use the seamless upgrade to Leap 42.3. Leap 42.2 ends service within six months.

System requirements

Leap 42.3 requires at least Pentium processor 4 1.6 GHz or higher (Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, any AMD64 or Intel64 recommended), from 1 GB RAM (from 2 GB recommended), from 3 GB hard disk space (from 5 GB recommended). Installation can be done from a DVD drive, using a USB Stick, or booting over a local network (PXE-boot). It is recommended that you read the release notes before installing.

What openSUSE Leap 42.3 is for the end user

Even more service

Building on openSUSE Leap on SLE (SUSE Linux Enterprise) and adding more source code In Leap 42.2 from SLE 12, Leap 42.3 makes available even more packages from SLE 12 SP 3 and synchronizes several common packages.

The shared codebase allows openSUSE Leap 42.3 to receive enhanced maintenance and bug fixes from both the openSUSE community and the SUSE developers.

Ready server

OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 offers the option to install a server during installation. Without graphical environment Leap's server installation is ready to do everything you need. Something as simple as running Web platforms or Mail, easier than ever, as well as complex projects using virtualization technologies or containers. For example, users looking for an "Exchange-like" service can use the latest version of the platform collaboration Kopano, including support for Thunderbird, Outlook and mobile mail clients. It's also good to remember that Leap and all other openSUSE and SLE distributions support a full text mod installer, providing all the same functionality as the graphical installer. The installer is fully capable of performing installations remotely using VNC or SSH, allowing you to set up your OpenSUSE Leap server without having to be anywhere near it.

Linux openSUSE Leap 42.3 for developers

Containers and applications in containers

OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 ships with Docker 1.12, which builds on the recent introduction of Dockers runC and containerd to bring latest features orchestrations such as Docker Swarm. Docker containers and tools make creation and management much easier and faster. This release is the first to include Flatpak, a software utility for software deployment, package management, and application virtualization for Linux. It provides a sandbox environment in which users can run applications in isolation from the rest of the system.

IDE and snap-in

Leap 42.3 contains finished version Qt 5 GUI (5.6) LTS toolkit. Qt 5.6 has some non-critical security fixes within Qt and in third party libraries.
Qt now detects remote print queues using avahi. This adds a delay the first time you open the print dialog in an application. If you don't have network print queues and you find the delay too annoying, you can disable it by setting the QT_DISABLE_PRINTER_DISCOVERY environment variable to 1. configuration file/etc/environment. GTK 3.20, used with SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP3, provides a reliable and stable toolkit for building gtk-based applications. GNOME Builder is offered as a powerful general-purpose framework for not only C, C++ and Vala-based GTK applications, but many other languages as well. For all your compilation needs, Leap 42.3 has gcc 4.8.5 as the default compiler, but gcc 5.3.1, 6.2.1 and 7.1.1 are also available for developers.

Languages and libraries

OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 includes older and newer programming languages. Go 1.6.2, Python 2.7, Ruby 2.4 and Perl 5.18 are available in Leap 42.3. This release of Leap introduces new major version libraries. New features for libvirt 3.3.0 to enable batch processing and improve network performance for guests. The functionality for the package manager has been improved in libzypp (16.12). Leap also has a well-installed GNU C library with Power 9 support.

Virtualization

OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 is full of virtualization solutions. QEMU 2.9 provides an extremely efficient processor emulator that allows you to choose between simulating the entire system and running binaries for different architectures.

VirtualBox 5.1.22 has a patch to change the API in Leap 42.3. OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 has perfect basic system to distribute applications that are easy to configure using YaST and gnome-boxes. With openSUSE Leap 42.3, system administrators can deploy solutions quickly and easily. The release provides system administrators with several options to easily support reliable operation computer systems. Build and manage Linux containers with Leap with Docker and LXC. Plus, take control of your Linux container images with the Portus Project openSUSE

YaST is our everything

The YaST development experience has brought tons of improvements to openSUSE Leap 42.3. The YaST community is working hard to improve usability and continues to add new tools and modules to Tumbleweed and Leap.

The list of improvements includes expanded ability to configure and use Trusted Boot also for EFI systems, new features for network installation, improvements to YSST partitioning, and better integration with Systemd services.

Most noticeable change is an updated desktop selection screen in the installer that offers a fairer playing field for all desktop environments outside of KDE and GNOME.

The installer no longer offers predetermined choice"secondary" desktops, but relies on existing templates created and maintained by enthusiasts of each graphical environment.

Thus, the principle “those who do, decide” now also governs the choice of available desktops. AutoYaST is now more reliable, powerful and friendly than ever.

Besides more quick installation in many situations and improve reporting automatic settings partition sizes, service management has been moved to the first stage of AutoYaST, which opens the door to many new opportunities for more flexible automatic scripts. A new feature of AutoYaST is its new integration with SaltStack and other configuration management systems, introduced by a new addition to the Leap family: the yast2-configuration-manager management package.

Now AutoYaST can take care of the system installation (partitioning, network configuration, etc.) and then delegate the system configuration to one of the widely used external tools.

System management

OpenSUSE Leap has Samba 4.6.5 and comes with version 4.6.4 for security, which takes care of the remote code execution vulnerability that allows an attacker to load a shared library in a writable manner shared resource and then force the server to download and execute it.

Systemd 228 remains in Leap 42.3 and received fixes for memory leaks, as well as improvements to rollbacks using openSUSE technology.

MariaDB 10.0.30 and Linux binary archives will now always be deployed to the directories corresponding to their filename.

MySQL 5.6.36 improved the performance of the thread_pool plugin, authentication and connection initialization were moved from the acceptor thread to the pool worker threads that handle client connections.

It's also worth remembering that openSUSE Leap uses RPM Delta for all maintenance updates, ensuring that the long-term bandwidth requirements for maintaining your Leap system are as low as possible.

How OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 is adapted to the language characteristics of different regions around the world (Internationalization)

This release of openSUSE uses Weblate to coordinate the translation of openSUSE into more than 50 languages. openSUSE's Weblate interface allows everyone (from dedicated translators to casual contributors) to participate in the process and allows openSUSE translations to be coordinated with SUSE Enterprise Linux, increasing collaboration between the community and the enterprise.

Let me remind you that openSUSE is a Linux distribution. It was originally developed in Germany, but is now owned by the American corporation Novell, Inc. The distribution is widely used all over the world, especially in Germany. Was based on the distribution Slackware, however, it has been significantly redesigned and is a separate distribution, differing from the latter in the package format, as well as the YaST configuration and administration system. Over time, SUSE has included many aspects Red Hat Linux(using the RPM system and /etc/sysconfig). The release cycle of new versions is 1 year.

The openSUSE project includes a wiki project, a portal for users, a “Build Service” for developers, an art project for designers, a mailing list and IRC channels in different languages, and Suse Studio for creating your own openSUSE.

OpenSUSE was the first distribution to include Snapper in its 12.1 release. openSUSE Factory also includes a Snapper tool. Snapper is a tool for managing snapshots of the Btrfs file system, which is offered by default during installation for the root partition. For the /home partition, by the way, XFS is offered by default.

Besides the obvious of creating and deleting snapshots, it can compare snapshots and correct differences between them. Simply put, it allows users to view old versions of files and undo changes. Snapper is available as a tool command line and as a YaST module. The libsnapper C++ library is available to other programs.

At the end of the article, I would like to note that openSUSE is also represented by the Argon, Krypton and GNOME Next projects, within which constantly updated distribution builds are formed with the latest experimental versions of the KDE and GNOME user environments. The assemblies support both the creation of full-fledged installable configurations and work in Live mode, which allows you to get acquainted with the development trends of KDE and GNOME without installing or making changes to working system. At their core, Argon and Krypton are reminiscent of the Kubuntu-based KDE Neon project and are built on the current slice of the KDE Git repository. Argon is based on the package base of the openSUSE Leap distribution, and Krypton is built using the continuously updated openSUSE Tumbleweed repository, providing an opportunity to evaluate the current state of KDE development in both the stable and openSUSE test environments. In addition to assemblies, the project also maintains package repositories KDE:Unstable:Frameworks, KDE:Unstable:Applications and KDE:Unstable:Extra, which you can use on your system to constantly monitor the development of KDE. The GNOME Next iso image is built from tar archives with releases of the latest experimental branch of GNOME.

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